Achievement School District Helps Low Performing Schools

The most important reform legislation TN was the creation of the Achievement School District, which takes the lowest performing 5% of the schools in the state (roughly 80 schools) away from their local districts and places them in one district, under Chris, who has enormous power and autonomy to fix them. Nelson Smith writes:

 

The ASD is now leading the charge in developing talented building and classroom leaders, luring high-quality charter-management organizations to The Volunteer State, and incubating new school-choice networks. It runs some schools directly and entrusts others to external charter operators. But the goal remains the same: turn the bottom 5 percent of schools into high-achieving ones (top 25 percent) within five years.

Will this happen? ASD is too new to have produced definitive evidence. But its forerunner in New Orleans, where the percentage of students performing on grade level continues to rise, demonstrates what’s possible. 

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