Former U.S. Senator Bill Frist and the Tennessee State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) held a statewide meeting focused on improving school and district leadership. The meeting's featured guests were Richard Laine, director of education programs at the Wallace Foundation, and Jon Schnur, CEO of New Leaders for New Schools. Following presentations from the featured guests, the SCORE Steering Committee held a working session focused on how to provide quality leadership development opportunities to school leaders across Tennessee.

“Developing strong school and district leaders is critical to the success of schools across Tennessee,” Mr. Frist said. “It’s clear from my conversations across the state that strong principals and superintendents are critical to recruiting, developing, and retaining highly effective teachers."

Richard Laine began the session talking about different models for developing effective leadership training programs for school principals. Mr. Laine specifically highlighted the need to clearly define the characteristics of an effective principal, accurately evaluate whether principals possess those characteristics, and provide opportunities for principals to develop skills that need improvement. He emphasized that the state and individual school districts must work together to develop these programs.

Following Mr. Laine’s presentation, Jon Schnur talked about New Leaders for New Schools (NLNS), a national non-profit focused on improving student achievement by recruiting and developing high-performing principals. The program at NLNS includes a highly selective recruitment process, a five-week summer training session, a year-long, full-time paid residency, and three years of professional development once new leaders are placed in schools.

Following the presentations, the Steering Committee moved into a working session focused on how to improve training and professional development opportunities for principals, assistant principals and superintendents in Tennessee.

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. SCORE is chaired by William H. Frist, former Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate. For more information, please visit www.tennesseescore.org.