Spotlight on Memphis Public Schools

memphismagazine.com

Like many urban areas in the U.S., the public schools of Memphis, Tennessee have been buried in bedlam for years with failing schools, high segregation and little opportunity for graduates to qualify for college.   What was before a low-hope environment for public school students, is now becoming a place where the possibility of high school diplomas that lead to college education and greater opportunities is broad. Memphis is inviting strong leaders and educators to reveal the potential change in education that is attainable for the southern city. 

Memphis Public Schools in 2012

As of the beginning of 2012, Memphis public schools were treading water.  About eighty percent of the lowest-performing schools in Tennessee were located in Memphis. The majority of all children attending public schools lived in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty and half of these children changed schools at least once a year.  As a result of their poor education around 5,000 students turn 19 without a high school diploma each year.  

Tennessee Launches the Achievement School District

After decades of a struggling education, the Tennessee Department of Education launched the state-run Achievement School District (ASD) in the fall of 2012.   Schools that qualified for the ASD were in the bottom 5 percent of Title I schools statewide on combined math and reading/language arts scores or had a graduation rate of less than 60 percent. The ASD’s  goal for theses schools is to turn them into the top 25% of state ranked schools within five years. 

Like other state run districts, such as the Louisiana Recovery School District, the ASD will do this through creating a portfolio district of direct run and charter schools.  The ASD has plans to both expand existing Memphis charter organizations, such as KIPP Memphis, and also invite new charter operators into the state.  The new charters include Aspire Public Schools and Green Dot Schools of California and YES Prep of Houston. 

In order to reach the grand goals for its students, the ASD has high expectations for incoming charter networks.  The district has created a comprehensive team that evaluates charter applications and includes national charter school experts, local community evaluators and representatives from the Tennessee Department of Education. 

As of June 3, 2013 the ASD approved nine new charter operators to begin serving students in the 2014-2015 school year.  This will triple the number of students served within the ASD from 1585 to 6000.  In addition to the charter schools, the ASD ran three direct-run schools in the 2012-2013 school year, and will add more in the upcoming school year. 

horancommunications.com

 Be Part of the Impact

Teachers and school leaders that are joining the Achievement School District from in and out of state have the opportunity to be part of the strong and impactful shift of  a changing education environment.   Many key players, such as community leaders, politicians, parents and teachers are talking about the education system. Memphis has become one of the nation’s new epicenters for education change. 

The ASD admits that improving their failing schools and changing the lives of their students for the better won’t be easy.  But they ensure teachers that it is the toughest job they’ll ever LOVE.  

Love to Teach: Sarah Petters

I don’t love to teach because of the light bulb moments when one kid finally gets it, or to see if a new lesson lands well with third period. Though, I have to admit, those are delicious moments when you see your work paying off.

I love to teach because of what I call marshmallow moments. You’ve probably heard of the famous marshmallow study. Scientists left preschoolers alone in a room with one marshmallow. They told the child that if they didn’t eat this marshmallow, they would get two when the researchers came back. Kids who didn’t eat the marshmallow went on to have better life outcomes – higher emotional intelligence, SAT scores, educational attainment, and even salaries. They’ve since updated the study by exposing half the kids to reliable adults and the other half to unreliable adults. They found that kids who were exposed to unreliable adults, who, for example, had promised to bring them new crayons and hadn’t delivered, were significantly more likely to eat the marshmallow. Exposing kids to reliable adults makes them more likely to delay gratification and not eat the marshmallow, suggesting that they will go on to have significantly better life outcomes.

Of all of the hours that my students are awake on any given day, I am often the adult that occupies most of those ticks on the clock. My job is to be their reliable adult. That’s why I love this job, and what I consider the most important part. Regardless of how well-planned my lesson is, how there was that incident in homeroom I have to deal with, how little coffee I’ve had, how I really need to get around to that dentist appointment, how the average on yesterday’s exit ticket was in the 60s, or that I have a million unanswered emails from last night’s faculty meeting, my job is to be present, to be calm, to be reliable, and to do it all with love.

Selfishly, and I can say this because I’m an adult who didn’t eat the marshmallows as a preschooler, I get the instant gratification of watching my students grow really quickly in this kind of environment. They rise to expectations because they know what to expect. They build the stamina to sit correctly in their desks, learn the self-control to walk down the hallway in a line, and learn the citizenship of reacting positively with their teammates. Before long, those marshmallow moments start happening everywhere: they’re going out of their way to pick up after someone who has dropped something and maybe I’ll notice, they’re working quietly for 7 minutes instead of 5, and are excited to tell me about that time they didn’t get in a fight. I love teaching because there are marshmallow moments, and small victories, like this every single day. There is always something to celebrate.

Author:  Sarah Petters

5th Year Teacher

KIPP Strive Academy

Atlanta, GA

Tell us why you love to teach for a chance to win a Target gift card for your class!

Twitter:  #love2teach

Facebook:  Haystack EDU

or submit a blog post in 500 words or less about why you love to teach.

Love to Teach: Allison Kelly

When Haystack EDU invited me to write a blog about why I love to teach, I immediately started listing all of the usual suspects: the kids, those “light bulb” moments, how much fun it is to guide students along their learning paths, etc. But then something happened in class last week that put all of those things on the back-burner and truly encapsulated why I love to teach.  

Picture this: There are less than ten days left in the school year.  The kids are acting like they’re already on summer vacation, and as a teacher, I am struggling to get out of bed each morning. (Trust me, no matter how much you love to teach, the end of the school year is HARD!) But my job is to teach and, regardless of what my third graders think, their job is to learn.  

So I sat at my desk planning lessons. I realized that I still needed to hit on a few social studies standards about the history of the Native Americans.  I teach in the state of Washington, so I decided to focus on the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest.  I gathered a bunch of books and narrowed down the learning targets for my kiddos.  The learning targets, while important and necessary, where not very exciting: I can use the table of contents to locate information and I can take notes on a topic.  Wheeee!!!!. . . . zzzzzzz. . . . 

But this is actually one of the best things about being a teacher – every lesson is like a puzzle: How do I take what the students need to learn and make it engaging, exciting, and FUN for them? My go-to secret weapon is almost always ART. Elementary school kids are ridiculously creative and the sad fact is that formal art classes in the public schools are an endangered species. I feel a responsibility to keep the creativity alive in my students as much as I can. 

So with the standards, learning targets, and art in mind, I crafted an experience for my students. They were to use the table of contents to find specific information in their books, take the necessary notes, and then display their learning by creating a foldable 3D pyramid on which they could illustrate what they had learned.  Not a mind-blowingly innovative lesson by any means, but not too shabby for the end of the year either.  

And here it is – the point to this whole story! As my students were working, I circulated the room for a bit and then sat down next to one of my students who happened to be working alone. She appeared to be really into what she was doing, and as she did her thing, I just sat there and watched. At one point she looked up and said, “This is really cool, Mrs. Kelly!” To which I replied, “Oh yeah? Why is that?” She responded, “Well, I’m like reading AND writing and then I’m doing art, AND I have to concentrate on everything. . . It’s like I’m a superhero! I’m doing it ALL!”

Author:  Allison Kelly

15th Year Teacher

3rd Grade

Vancouver, WA

Tell us why you love to teach for a chance to win a Target gift card for your class!

Twitter:  #love2teach

Facebook:  Haystack EDU

or submit a blog post in 500 words or less about why you love to teach.