Memphis Business Journal - by Karen Ott Mayer -

As a first-round pick for Race to the Top funding, Tennessee has filtered $75 million down to Memphis City Schools and Shelby County Schools where local leaders have outlined specific plans for the funds.

Race to the Top, a $4.35 billion federal program designed to spur reforms in K-12 schools, first was announced by President Barack Obama in July 2009. The government challenged states to submit grant applications focusing on four specific areas designed to yield major educational reforms. In March 2010, the government announced Tennessee and Delaware as the first recipients to win the funding. Tennessee is set to receive just over $500 million.

Shelby County Schools, recipient of $5 million to be used over four years, decided to pursue a narrow course. The county funding became available Aug. 1.

“We’re going to invest in people, not programs, and focus deeper on fewer initiatives,” says Laura Link, SCS’ director of professional development and leadership.

Link says a new district-wide approach centers on a research-based model called Professional Learning Communities, a development method that focuses on student learning, not teaching, as the outcome.

“A good portion of the funding will be dedicated to supporting nine learning coaches, a district-level team of exemplary teachers with no classrooms,” she says.

Link says learning coaches will work directly with 200 teachers in the classroom and receive a stipend.

In target, or under-performing, schools, a 1:1 ratio of teacher and learning coach will be established as opposed to a 1:3 ratio in non-target schools.

Principals are also part of the plan.

“Almost half of our principals have been to the PLC Institute,” says Link.

Expanding leadership development to include assistant principals and job shadowing is planned.

“We still believe that our greatest resource is a well-skilled, effective teacher,” she says.

Memphis City Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash, who expects his district’s $70 million Race to the Top funds to be available by early fall, unveils a plan to turn around 28 schools he deems a “striving school zone.”

“We’re doing things very differently than before,” he says.

The funding is slated for use in specific ways: to support a new set of reading and support materials, to develop mathematics programs, to hire 34 teachers who are reading specialists and to convert two schools entirely into STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) schools. Memphis has eight of Tennessee’s 13 lowest performing schools, says Cash, who has been with the district for two years.

Race to the Top funding in Tennessee falls into two major buckets, with $250 million allotted for the five largest school districts and the remaining $250 million to be allocated across the smaller 62 districts.

Cash says the funds must be used solely as the grant outlined and cannot be used for operational expenses. With the budget battle still unresolved with the city, Cash didn’t hesitate to apply for the federal funds.

“Our application was so rigorous and bold, Gov. (Phil) Bredesen liked what we’re doing,” he says. “We’re well-aligned with the national agenda of President Barack Obama and with the local reform agenda.”

Race to the Top is the second of two major initiatives, the first being the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant which awarded MCS $90 million to be used over the next seven years. Cash notes that with the Gates money, newly-developed strategic national partnerships and now the Race to the Top funds, MCS is poised for new direction.

“We can become much improved and set a benchmark for urban education.”

Shelby County Schools

Tennessee’s fourth largest school system
Population: More than 48,000 students
Superintendent: John S. Aitken
Central office: 160 S. Hollywood St.
Phone: (901) 321-2500
Website: www.scsk12.org