Our Core Beliefs

We believe Tennessee must implement regular, transparent, equity-focused data reporting to inform progress across all our policy priorities and equity actions.

Equity Principle: Every student in Tennessee attends a school that prepares them for the opportunities and demands of an increasingly complex and diverse world. Additionally, students receive high-quality and differentiated instruction and materials that are culturally and linguistically sustaining.

Equity Actions:

• Maintain and prioritize a focus on student growth and equity in Tennessee’s statewide accountability, assessment, and educator evaluation systems to ensure continuous improvement for districts, educators, and ultimately, students
• Ensure students have access to curriculum, materials, and supports that are high-quality, accurately reflect history, and affirm the diverse identities, cultures, languages, and backgrounds of our students
• Support student learning by providing integrated academic support and high-quality instruction and materials while maintaining access to grade-level content in math, ELA, social studies, and science
• Expand access to high-quality and affordable early childhood education to extend earlier access to literacy and other developmentally appropriate experiences
• Publish annual, disaggregated, and centralized data on advanced coursework and high school pathways, including enrollment, credit attainment, and participant postsecondary enrollment

Equity Principle: Every public school student in Tennessee attends a school that receives robust and stable funding and resources based on student needs through a flexible, fair, and transparent funding system.

Equity Actions:

• Provide TISA support and monitoring to strategically leverage funding to support students from low-income backgrounds, English learners, students with disabilities, and students in rural schools
• Increase state allocations to ensure our per-student funding level is at or above the national average (approx. $16,645 per pupil)
• Publicly report all education revenue and expenditure data in an annual, longitudinal, disaggregated, transparent, and interactive format
• Develop research on how Tennessee’s funding and accountability systems identify and resource schools serving students living in poverty

Equity Principle: Every student in Tennessee has access to skilled, well-resourced, and competitively compensated teachers, leaders, and staff who reflect the state’s racial and linguistic diversity. Educators authentically engage in decision-making that impacts their profession.

Equity Actions: 

• Publish detailed statewide, real-time teacher and leader retention, turnover, and vacancy data to better understand and support the educator workforce
• Increase sustainable low-cost, high-quality pathways into teaching that move the teacher workforce closer to student racial and linguistic diversity
• Increase the accessibility, affordability, reliability, and transparency of teacher, school, and district leadership pathways
• Support school districts to nurture and retain highly effective teachers and school leaders in their schools

Equity Principle: Every student in Tennessee has access to a physically safe, emotionally supportive, inclusive, diverse, and linguistically accessible education environment to support their learning and mental health. Students authentically engage in decision-making that impacts their education.

Equity Actions:

• Eliminate corporal punishment and exclusionary school discipline practices for non-violent offenses
• Provide training and resources for educators on cultural competence, classroom management, positive discipline practices, and skill-building to support whole-child development
• Support student attendance and holistic wellbeing in both P–12 and higher education by investing in academic, mental health, and basic needs resources
• Increase opportunities for student voice and leadership to engage in decision-making for local and state education policymaking bodies

Equity Principle: Every student in Tennessee has access to an affordable postsecondary degree or credential that propels them to a career that ensures economic prosperity. In addition, all students have access to resources and wrap-around supports that drive them to and through higher education.

Equity Actions:

• Optimize Tennessee’s financial aid system through a simple, flexible, need-centric design that centers the tuition and non-tuition needs of students from nontraditional and low-income backgrounds
• Leverage Tennessee’s higher education master plan and outcomes-based funding formula to prioritize reducing attainment gaps by income level and race
• Provide targeted, high-quality college advising, from high school to postsecondary, to address equity gaps in college enrollment and completion
• Revise the in-state tuition policy for public institutions to ensure that every Tennessee high school graduate has equal access to postsecondary education, regardless of citizenship status or background