1. State of Education in Tennessee Tennessee Association of Secondary School Principals Dr. Candice McQueen, Commissioner of Education Highlights from 2015 and Focus for 2016

2. Sworn in as Commissioner on January 18, 2015 Just signed the Oath of Office

3. Goals for 2015 Urgent Goals: Listening and learning Building relationships Focusing on department leadership Focusing on department structure Improving communications Priority Goals: Creating strategic plan Drafting accountability waiver Exploring assessment concerns Exploring funding priorities and challenges Conducting standards review for Math and ELA Implementing TNReady

4. Classroom Chronicles Tour

5. 2015 CLASSROOM CHRONICLES TOUR 8,705 Teachers

6. FOCUS: Seeing Practice & Listening to Educators Williamson County Shelby County Trousdale County

7. Lewis County Kingsport City Milan Special School District Lincoln County FOCUS: Valuing Teachers

8. FOCUS: Highlighting Good Practice

9. Operations

10. Reorganization of the Department Creation of three deputy commissioner roles: –Chief Academic Officer: all academic areas under one deputy commissioner –Chief Operations Officer: all operations under another –Policy and External Affairs: policy and communications teams connected under a third

11. Special Populations & Student Support Joey Hassell CTE Early Postsecondary & Student Readiness Divisional Support & Accountability Pathways College, Career & Technical Education Danielle Mezera Licensure Program Approval Educator Effectiveness Human Capit al Early Learning (Birth-to-Five) Conditions for Learning Special Populations State Special Schools Deputy Commissioner Chief Academic Officer Vicki Kirk Academic Strategy & Operations PD, Research, Policy Robinette Mitchell Teachers & Leaders Paul Fleming CORE (Centers of Regional Excellence) District Support Meghan Curran Content & Assessment Design Standards, Assessment Design, Textbooks Tammy Shelton Academics

12. Deputy Commissioner Chief Operations Officer Kathleen Airhart Consolidated Planning & Monitoring Eve Carney Federal Programs Planning District Monitoring ePlan Information Technology Cliff Lloyd Finance Chris Foley Operations Rasheeda Washington Human Resources Vicki Hall Internal Audit Chris Steppe OCR & TOSHA Monitoring Procurement Assets Management Risk Management School Nutrition EIS/SIS Data Dashboards NetTN eRate Divisional Support Accounting State Budget Federal Budgets Local Finance Fiscal Talent Management Hiring Operations Employee Relations Benefits Performance Management District Compliance Reviews Departmental Audits Operations

13. Deputy Commissioner Policy & External Affairs Stephen Smith Policy Legislative Affairs State Board of Education School Choice IEA External Communications Contracts Civil Rights Special Education Legal General Counsel Christy Ballard Policy & External Affairs

14. Focus on Communications with Stakeholders Redesigned Commissioner’s Update for Directors and other newsletters for clarity and ease of use Added the Commissioner’s Update for Principals in late fall Added special edition communications for teachers, principals and directors on TNReady, NAEP, and the standards review process Hosted the first Tele-town Hall for parents in November 2015. Nearly 10,000 parents joined the discussion on TNReady at its peak. Provided parents and educators a direct line to the department for questions and concerns about TNReady through TNReady.Questions@tn.gov TNReady.Questions@tn.gov Released a number of information videos to teachers through the Educator Update and social media

15. Assessment Task Force

16. Purpose Conduct an environmental scan of assessment usage and practices across the state Establish principles addressing purposes and goals of state assessments relative to locally chosen/designed assessments Define appropriate practices and recommendations that best support decision-making at the state, district, school, and teacher level Gain insight on ways to best communicate about TNReady to all stakeholder groups

17. Assessment Task Force Members 18 members: –Commissioner of Education –Teachers –Student Representative –Principals –Assistant Director of Schools –Director of Schools –Legislators –State Board of Education –Tennessee School Boards Association (TSBA) –Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) Ex officio members: –SCORE –Tennessee Education Association (TEA) –Professional Educators of Tennessee (PET) –Tennessee Department of Education

18. Guiding Principles Formative (Interim/Benchmark) Assessments –Provide timely feedback to teachers, parents, and students. –Provide information that leads to daily decision-making –Be used primarily to 1) measure mastery on standards that have been taught in alignment with the expectations of the standards and the rigor of the summative assessment, and 2) provide diagnostic information about student skill gaps and enrichment opportunities. Summative (Annual) Assessments –Be properly aligned to the state’s standards. –Embody the full range of expectations in the state’s standards and demonstrate the level of rigor needed in the process of teaching and learning. –Show all students’ culmination of understanding, strengths, and areas for improvement to stakeholders.

19. Guiding Principles Test Preparation –Emphasize and support the idea that the best test preparation is focusing on great teaching and engaged student learning every day. –Ensure transparency in the test design – including blue prints and question format – to help teachers and students know what is expected of them in reaching mastery of the standards. Test Logistics –Provide more test scheduling and logistics support with opportunities for input from those on receiving end of tests –Continue to assist in greater use of technology for personalized learning and to prepare schools for online testing

20. 16 Recommendations Beginning with the 2016-17 school year, the department should annually release as many summative test items as possible without compromising test security and development. The department should address the issue of over-testing and possible test redundancy by eliminating the mandatory EXPLORE (8 th grade) and PLAN (10th grade) tests, and not adopt ACT’s new alternative ASPIRE. Districts should carefully select and design formative assessments that lead to defined student outcomes. Districts should reduce formative assessments that do not guide decision-making and next steps in instruction. Highlights:

21. 16 Recommendations The department should form a parent advisory group to specifically give feedback on concerns related to over-testing and test preparation practices as well as feedback on information desired for annual student test reports. The department should expand ACT or SAT retake opportunities for all students. The department should convene a testing scheduling and logistics advisory group that is representative of district personnel across the state to address logistical challenges. Highlights:

22. Tennessee Succeeds

23. OUR GOALS Tennessee will continue rapid improvement and rank in the top half of states on the Report Card. MEASUREMENT Tennessee will rank in top half of states on 4 th and 8 th grade NAEP in 2019. 1

24. GOAL 1 READING

25. GOAL 1 MATH

26. OUR GOALS. Tennessee will continue rapid improvement and rank in the top half of states on the Report Card. MEASUREMENT Tennessee will rank in top half of states on 4 th and 8 th grade NAEP in 2019. 1 2 The average ACT score in Tennessee will be a 21, allowing more students to earn HOPE scholarships. MEASUREMENT Tennessee will have an average public ACT composite score of 21 by 2020.

27. GOAL 2

28. OUR GOALS. Tennessee will continue rapid improvement and rank in the top half of states on the Report Card. MEASUREMENT Tennessee will rank in top half of states on 4 th and 8 th grade NAEP in 2019. 1 2 3 The average ACT score in Tennessee will be a 21, allowing more students to earn HOPE scholarships. MEASUREMENT The class of 2020 will be on track to achieve 55% postsecondary completion in six years. The majority of Tennessee high school graduates will earn a certificate, diploma, or degree. MEASUREMENT Tennessee will have an average public ACT composite score of 21 by 2020.

29. GOAL 3

30. STANDARDS, ASSESSMENT, AND ACCOUNTABILITY We have seen tremendous success over the past few years based on a strategy centered around rigorous standards, aligned assessment, and strong accountability.

31. OUR PRIORITIES

32. Standards Review

33. Standards Review Highlights ELA and Math –More than 130,000 reviews and more than 20,000 comments were collected –Advisory teams of nearly 50 Tennessee educators and higher education faculty worked to evaluate and revise the standards during Summer 2015 –An appointed Standards Recommendation Committee (SRC) reviewed and will recommend for two readings by the State Board in January and April 2016 before the changes are final –Implementation will take place in the 2017-18 school year.

34. Pending Changes in ELA The layout of the standards has shifted from a grade by grade layout to one that focuses on vertical progression. Now teachers will be able to see the entire learning progression from K-12 for a particular standard. The early grades strand called Reading Foundations has been broadened to include foundational skills for language and writing as well. The new strand is called Foundational Literacy and its intent is to show the interconnectedness of literacy instruction and acquisition in the early grades. The revised ELA standards also remove the parenthetical examples that were previously included. This was done to ensure that the standards remain at the standard level rather than venture into the realm of curriculum or unnecessarily limit teacher autonomy.

35. Pending Changes in Math The formatting of the standards has been revised. Expectations for fluency in the early grades were increased making K-2 math more rigorous. Middle school math had minor changes. You will see the addition of some statistics in 6-8. Algebra II content was carefully examined and several standards that were not considered essential for all students were moved to other courses. For example, standards covering trigonometric functions were moved to Pre-calculus. A new 4 th year elective course - Applied Mathematical Concepts - was created. Two previous elective courses - Discrete and Finite math - have been proposed for elimination.

36. TNReady

37. Goals and Transition Points Goals Better information about postsecondary readiness Full alignment to depth and breadth of standards TN-specific test Primary Transition Points Online Variety of test item types Two parts Additional tools – MICA, Assessment Blueprints Timeline adjustment in year one

38. TNReady Timeline Fall 2015 Block schedules administer Part I & II Winter 2016 Conduct two additional system tests Traditional schedules administer Part I Release quick scores for fall block schedule students (estimated 1st week of February) Spring 2016 Block schedules administer Part I & II Traditional schedules administer Part II Finalize performance level descriptors Summer 2016 Begin educator collaboration on scoring and set cut scores Release quick scores for traditional and spring block schedules (estimated 1st week of June) Release growth scores (estimated July) Fall 2016 Deliver student reports in Sept-Oct

39. Assessment Scoring Nearly 200 Tennessee educators are informing how the test is scored, and there is no set number of students who have to fall into each performance level category (e.g., proficient, advanced). The writing assessment will be hand-scored by professional scorers at Measurement Inc. Most mathematics assessments will be machine-scored. All anchor papers and training materials are selected from Tennessee student responses and approved by the department. Every student response is scored two times by independent scorers to determine the response’s score – so 100 percent of student responses are read and checked twice.

40. TNReady and TVAAS TVAAS will compare students’ relative performance on TNReady to their peers’ performance on TNReady. TVAAS will not compare students’ absolute performance on TNReady to their absolute performance on TCAP. Because students’ performance will be compared to the performance of their peers, any drops in statewide proficiency rates resulting from increased rigor will have no impact on the ability of teachers, schools, and districts to earn strong TVAAS scores.

41. TNReady and TVAAS

42. TNReady and Teacher Evaluations The Tennessee Teaching Evaluation Enhancement Act passed last spring adjusts the weighting relative to the Individual Growth Score component of teacher evaluations during the transition to TNReady. The new law provides for a three-year phase-in approach so that new state assessments administered in 2015-16 through 2017-18 will factor in a teacher’s evaluation as follow: –10 percent of the individual growth in the first year (2015-16) –20 percent of the individual growth in year two (2016-17) –35 percent of the individual growth in year three (2017-18)

43. The Tennessee Teaching Evaluation Enhancement Act gives complete discretion to local school districts in how they factor student test data into employment decisions like promotion, retention, termination and compensation. In addition, last year the General Assembly adopted legislation giving local districts the option of excluding TNReady scores from a student’s final grade if the scores are not received at least five days before the end of the school year. Because results will be delayed this year, districts will have the choice to exclude TNReady scores for the 2015-16 school year. Additional Flexibility

44. Focus Areas for Early 2016

45. 1.TNReady – We are continuing to make updates to ensure a smooth test administration this year and improved assessments for next year 2.Read to be Ready – In response to assessment data, we are launching a statewide literacy campaign focused on early literacy as a means for improving postsecondary success 3.Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) – No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the previous version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that had been up for reauthorization since 2007, has now been replaced with ESSA

46. ESSA (cont.) We will continue the work we have done to raise standards, create aligned assessments, develop state report cards, and intervene in our lowest performing schools. Our system accountability system incorporates most of the required factors, with the exception of a measure of school quality and student success, which we will work with stakeholders to define. State-designed interim and long-term goals must now be include English language proficiency. The state will work with stakeholders to transition to the new law and to determine appropriate goals for English language proficiency. We will also work with the education community to determine how to appropriately account for ELs as part of our accountability system.

47. Questions?