Tom Marino and Teresa Sloyan - The Commercial Appeal -

Recent pressures on the Memphis City Schools district to limit the talent pool and restrict principals' hiring choices raise a fundamental question: Are we giving our school leadership the ability to make smart decisions about who will teach our children?

It seems that the defense of the status quo focuses more on protecting adults than the interests of our city's most vulnerable children.

We are proud of our district and school board leadership for advancing the Memphis City Schools' Teacher Effectiveness Initiative that focuses on what matters most for our children: effective teachers. We are certain that many of our students are fortunate to have excellent teachers today. Our sense of urgency should be to ensure that every classroom is led by an effective or high-potential teacher to set students on a path to success.

Today, only 4 percent of MCS students who graduate are college-ready, limiting their future and threatening the economic stability of our community and our country. The picture is even grimmer for those students affected by the racial and socioeconomic performance gap. In this state of crisis, we need to ensure we are giving our hardest-hit students access to the excellent educational opportunities they deserve.

These are concerns that unite many of us as advocates for student achievement and in support of our unshakable belief that all children deserve to have their best options for success in school and in life. We are joined in these positions by Jennifer Littlejohn of Communities for Teaching Excellence; Scott McCormick of the Plough Foundation; Douglas Scarboro of the Memphis mayor's Office of Talent and Human Capital; Blair Taylor of Memphis Tomorrow; Spence L. Wilson Sr., of the Kemmons Wilson Family Foundation; Kim Wirth of the International Paper Company Foundation; Jamie Woodson of SCORE; Johnny Moore of SunTrust Banks and Ron Belz of Belz Enterprises.

Every child should have access to a high-quality education. It is imperative for our community's future that we stand in support of MCS' Teacher Effectiveness Initiative, which promises:

1) To use a common, agreed-upon process to define and measure what the community deems to be effective teaching.

2) To make smarter decisions about who teaches our students.

3) To better support, utilize and compensate our teachers.

4) To improve the surrounding contexts for teachers and students to foster effective teaching.

Whether school leaders decide on a current MCS teacher or a high-potential candidate from pathways such as Teach For America, the Memphis Teaching Fellows, the Memphis Teacher Residency or traditional teacher certification programs, they should have the opportunity to choose the best teacher for their school and their individual students. It is not fair to our children to systematically exclude candidates coming through the pathways that have track records of success.

For example, there's a growing body of research showing the effectiveness of Teach For America teachers. The most recent study from Tennessee looked at 42 teacher preparation programs and found that Teach For America corps members outperformed the average new teacher across all subject areas and grade levels, and in some areas they outperform veteran teachers. Teach For America was the top new teacher preparation program in the state.

Research also shows that 25 percent of teachers' effectiveness in the classroom depends on the quality of the match with their school. This means that even the most talented teachers won't reach their full potential if they are hired in a way that ignores their fit at a particular school. To that end, the Teacher Effectiveness Initiative also included partnering with The New Teacher Project to create the Office of Strategic Teacher Recruitment and Staffing (STARS). This year, the STARS team met every target for hiring and opened the school year with 100 percent of known vacancies filled with a qualified teacher, a district first.

To keep the momentum toward our community goal of teacher effectiveness, we need to stay committed to this work. Let's make sure that when it comes time to decide who their teachers will be, principals are getting more options, not fewer.

Tom Marino is executive director of the Poplar Foundation, and Teresa Sloyan is executive director of the Hyde Family Foundations.