Nashville, TN— Today, Governor Bill Lee proposed more than $1 billion new recurring funding for K-12 public education in Tennessee during his fourth State of the State Address, including a proposal for a new student-based public education funding formula, innovative school models in middle and high schools, new school buildings to get classrooms out of floodplains, and a $125 million increase for teacher compensation.

Nashville, TN— Today, the Tennessee Department of Education announced all 147 Tennessee school districts have received approval on their required ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) plans to spend more than $3.5 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funding to benefit K-12 public school students in their districts. Per U.S. Department of Education guidelines, all districts were required to develop plans that outlined their local spending strategies for their portion of the historic amount of federal funding.

Nashville, TN—Today, Gov. Lee and the Tennessee Department of Education, in partnership with the SAS Institute, released pre-pandemic projected data compared to student’s actual TCAP scores to help measure the pandemic’s impact on student achievement via the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) public site, which is used annually to measure overall student growth. The results of this additional annual analysis from SAS show the negative impact of COVID-19 on student achievement and bright spots for schools that have outperformed expectations.

Nashville, TN- Following months of strong engagement and conversations about public education funding in Tennessee, today the Tennessee Department of Education announced over 1,300 public comments have been submitted on a potential student-based K-12 public education funding formula in Tennessee. Comments and input have been submitted by hundreds of parents, educators, superintendents, elected officials, business and community leaders, and citizens from across the state.

Nashville, TN— Paving the way for teaching and educator workforce development nationwide, the Tennessee Department of Education announced today it has pioneered a new way to develop teacher pipelines, and is the first state to be approved by the U.S. Department of Labor to establish a permanent Grow Your Own model, with Clarksville-Montgomery County School System and Austin Peay State University's Teacher Residency program becoming the first registered apprenticeship program for teaching in the country.

Nashville, TN-  After months of strong engagement and conversations about public education funding in Tennessee and years of consistent feedback, today the Tennessee Department of Education released an initial draft overview of a potential student-based funding formula, informed by input of thousands of Tennesseans-- parents, educators, superintendents, elected officials, business and community leaders, and citizens from across the state-- and is encouraging all Tennesseans to send feedback on this draft framework by an extended deadline of Tuesday, January 18th at noon CT. Comment should be sent to tnedu.funding@tn.gov.

Nashville, TN—Today, the Tennessee Department of Education released the ACT state results and participation rate for the 2021 graduating class. Participation in the ACT decreased slightly from 97% with 62,564 graduates in 2019-20 to 96% with 60,865 graduates in 2020-21. The state average composite ACT score showed a decline from 19.9 for the class of 2019-20 to 19.1 for the class of 2020-21.

Memphis, TN– Today, the Tennessee Department of Education, Achievement School District (ASD), and Shelby County Schools (SCS) announced that four schools– Frayser Achievement Elementary School, Corning Achievement Elementary School, Georgian Hills Achievement Elementary School and Whitney Achievement School– will return to Shelby County Schools following the 2021-22 school year.

Nashville, TN — Today, the Tennessee Department of Education announced the launch of a Reading 360 winter family literacy campaign— S.I.M.P.L.E. Moments At Home, Reading with Riley the Raccoon. Throughout the winter months, the department will be sharing on social media ways families can continue learning at home over the winter break and how they can create special sounds-first reading moments with their children. Follow #ReadLikeRiley on social media for regular updates.

Nashville, TN — In anticipation of further upcoming conversations around a student-based funding formula for Tennessee’s public schools, and as the department launches its School Funding Ambassadors opportunity available to any interested Tennessean, the Tennessee Department of Education invites all Tennesseans to e-mail their priorities for a student-centered public education funding strategy to tnedu.funding@tn.gov.

Nashville, TN — Today, the Tennessee Department of Education announced the two 2021-22 Tennessee Principals of the Year and two Tennessee Supervisors of the Year at the annual Excellence in Education celebration. For the first time in recent program history, scoring for the Tennessee Principal of the Year and Tennessee Supervisor of the Year awards was so close that two outstanding educators were selected for each award.

Nashville, TN—This week, the Tennessee Department of Education released the graduation rate for the 2020-21 school year. Of the 2020-21 cohort, 88.7% of students graduated on time this year compared to 89.6% last year, 37 districts improved their graduation rates, and 37 districts graduated 95% or more of their cohorts.

Nashville, TN— Today, the Tennessee Department of Education announced over $800,000 in grant funding has been awarded to 38 districts for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, middle school career and technical education (CTE), and High School School-Based Enterprise (SBE) projects.   

NASHVILLE, TN - Today, the Tennessee Department of Education, in partnership with the Niswonger Foundation, announced spring registration for the AP Access for ALL is open for free, online Advanced Placement (AP) classes to eligible high school students. More Tennessee students than ever before now have the opportunity to take AP coursework - helping students prepare for college, skip introductory classes, and earn college credit while still in high school.

Nashville, TN - Today, the Tennessee Department of Education and the Tennessee STEM Innovation Network (TSIN) released the 2020-21 Tennessee’s Future Workforce Initiative Impact Report, highlighting the significant impact career and technical education, computer science, and STEM has made on students and educators across the state.