WRCBtv.com | Chattanooga News, Weather & SportsPEF's Challener to Serve on Frist Education Committee

PEF's Challener to Serve on Frist Education Committee

CHATTANOOGA- Public Education Foundation President Dan Challener has accepted an invitation to serve on the newly established Tennessee State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) which is being chaired by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. 

"The Public Education Foundation has been working for 20 years to improve student achievement in Hamilton County, and we've made real progress," says Challener.  "Many challenges remain, however, and we are pleased that Senator Frist and the many respected members of the steering committee are bringing their considerable talents and resources to the issue of education reform for all the children of Tennessee."

SCORE is an initiative to jumpstart long-term educational change in Tennessee to ensure that every child graduates high school prepared for college or a career.  Other Chattanooga leaders serving on the SCORE steering committee include Corinne Allen, Executive Director of the Benwood Foundation, and Tom Kinser, former CEO of BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee.

In the fall of 2008, Governor Phil Bredesen set a high bar for Tennessee's K-12 education system with the Tennessee Diploma Project, and SCORE will focus on jumpstarting reforms that will help Tennessee schools, teachers, and students meet this bar.  The group hopes to achieve this goal by (1) developing a strategic plan for K-12 education reform in Tennessee via a statewide Steering Committee of key stakeholders (2) launching a number of Project Teams to initiate both statewide and local education projects and (3) running a grassroots campaign to promote the state's new standards, identify education activists across the state, and create conversations among local community leaders about how each community can improve its local schools.

At the first meeting of the Steering Committee on March 3, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and former North Carolina Governor Michael Easley discussed successful education reform efforts in their respective states.  From 1992 to 2007, students in both Florida and North Carolina improved significantly faster on the National Assessment of Education Progress than students in Tennessee. Senator Frist invited both of the governors to Tennessee in order to learn about their best practices and to gauge how Tennessee schools might be able to adopt similar practices.

Prior to October - when the committee will compile a list of recommendations on how Tennessee can best accelerate the improvement of our K-12 schools - SCORE will have nine more statewide meetings, each of which will be headlined by different education leaders from across the country.  SCORE's next statewide meeting will be Monday, March 23, at the First Amendment Center in Nashville. 

For more on Tennessee SCORE, visit the website at http://tennesseescore.org/ .