November 16, 2020
TSS announced the winners of Tristar Reads, our annual reading scholarship competition for Tennessee students grades K-12 last week. Tristar Reads is proud to award $1,000 college scholarships to the following outstanding Tennessee readers:
Elementary School Division – Jeffrey Stubblefield, 2nd Grade, Hamilton County, 39,420 minutes of reading
Middle School Division – Sarah Collier, 8th Grade, Cheatham County, 30,540 minutes of reading
High School Division – Amelia Cole, 9th Grade, Knox County, 40,800 minutes of reading
While mitigating the summer slide is paramount, this year, it was even more critical to celebrate and encourage community engagement around literacy efforts with local school leaders to help curb further learning loss as a result of disruptions with the COVID-19 pandemic. The Tristar Reads Team Leader Program empowered individuals across the state to foster increased reading engagement and literacy by recruiting students.
Read the full press release here.
Interested in getting involved with Tristar Reads in 2021? Sign up here!
Tennesseans for Student Success’ Board Chairman Austin McMullen recently penned an opinion editorial in the Tennessean on the importance of measuring how students are improving with assessments, especially in this year full of unprecedented closures and variations of learning.
“Instead of letting politicians and public-sector unions arbitrarily define success, let’s use the measurements we have in place to quantify our progress and characterize our future.”
Read the full op-ed here.
Recently, Governor Lee and the Tennessee Department of Education announced a critical $5 million investment supporting charter schools that will focus on significant academic growth on a per-pupil basis. According to the State’s press release, this charter school support grant is funded through the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund (GEER).
Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn said, “This Charter School Support Grant is an important measure to support our strong public charter school sector and ensure families continue to have access to high-quality school options.”
Get more information on this grant and read the full press release here.
Last week, the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) announced the addition of former House Speaker Pro Tem Bill Dunn as senior adviser to Commissioner Penny Schwinn. According to the Department’s press release, Dunn will “counsel the department on key priority areas and engagement strategies to help advance education initiatives in Tennessee.” This new partnership is good news for Tennessee kids as Bill Dunn is an experienced statesman and well-qualified from his service on the House Education Committee. Read more on this announcement from the press release here.