Top educators in town for seminar
■ America Achieves eyes school reform
About 100 of the nation’s top teachers and principals will be in Memphis this weekend, starting Friday, for a conference at the Memphis Cook Convention Center highlighting the education reforms making Memphis and Tennessee national leaders.
America Achieves, cofounded by Jon Schnur, education policy adviser in Bill Clinton’s administration and co-founder of New Leaders for New Schools, is a national group of educators working to change public policy on education.
This fall it selected 100 fellows, including 11 from Memphis, to lead the charge, based on the outcomes they see in their schools. Each fellow receives a $1,500 stipend for a year and is expected to complete a project to improve education.
A highlight of the session will be focus on reforms here with remarks from Barbara Prescott, head of the Transition Planning Commission that laid the ground for what the merged district will look like; Tequila Banks, head of the Memphis City Schools Teacher Effectiveness Initiative; Daniel Kiel, University of Memphis law professor; Fred Johnson, TPC vice chairman; and Chris Barbic, superintendent of the Achievement School District.
“In Memphis, and throughout the nation, we are seeing pockets of excellence in education that we can learn from and leverage as we work to raise the bar and improve outcomes for all students,” said Schnur, executive chairman.
One of the highlights of the meeting happens at 1:30 p.m. Friday when America Achieves previews a teacher-to-teacher website featuring the work of 40 teachers around the nation demonstrating through videos, lesson plans and student work how they are improving classroom rigor through the Common Core State Standards.
Four of the teachers are from Memphis, including Steven McKinney, math teacher at Booker T. Washington.
“As an African-American male who grew up in inner-city Memphis, it is my responsibility to help improve the lives of the people in my community. It has become a personal responsibility to be the voice for inner-city students who lack the social or economic resources or support to get their needs met,” he said.
By summer, with financial backing of the Gates foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies, the teacher-to-teacher site will have offer Common Core support for teachers in every grade and subject.
McKinney, one of the teachers honored in the I Am I Teach billboard campaign here funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, first got national attention when President Barack Obama congratulated him for his work during the BTW commencement address in 2011.
Other Memphis fellows are: Monica Brown, Oakhaven Elementary; Brittany Clark, Middle College High; Melissa Collins, John P. Freeman; Tanya Dennis, Delano Elementary; Kashunda Hill, Fairley High; Agata Jedrzejewski, Wooddale High; Davida Smith-Keita, Manassas High; Michelle Armstrong, Insight Education; Patrice Shipp, Delano Elementary principal; and Tisha White, former principal of Shannon Elementary, now adjunct professor with New Leaders for New Schools.