When organizations develop new strategic plans, they’re often considered as shelf documents that won’t much change the status quo. Not so with the Public Education Foundation.
The PEF, a smallish community-based nonprofit organization that for 25 years has partnered with public schools here to help improve student achievement, is plunging with renewed zeal into high-impact programs with potential at all levels in Hamilton County’s public schools. Designed to complement recent national, state and local Race to the Top reforms, they comprise a thoughtful linkage of progressive aid to students in all grade levels and expert mentoring and leadership training for personnel, from classroom teachers to principals to administrators in the central office. They also recognize the unique economic development and job growth potential now gathering steam here.
These are not esoteric programs, nor are they unneeded. The school system’s budget has been pared to the bone over the past decade. It can hardly afford adequate staff, classroom materials or new roofs when they’re leaky and beyond repair, much less the level of professional training that is constantly required for new teachers and principals. PEF initiatives, prepared in collaboration with the school system’s leadership, help fill these crucial gaps.
Support for teachers
Operating on the principle that excellent public schools demand excellent teachers and principals, the remodeled PEF initiatives go to the core. They focus on specific levels of professional support for teachers, especially in high-poverty schools, and schools where large numbers of students learn English as a second language. They are designed to help students and teachers excel under rigorous new state standards, which raised Tennessee’s academic standards from among the lowest in the nation to some of the highest, and which now require annual evaluations of teachers and principals.