Education Sector, a national independent nonpartisan education think tank, today released a new report “The Benwood Plan: A Lesson in Comprehensive Teacher Reform.”

Chattanooga's Benwood Initiative is one of the most widely touted school-reform success stories of recent years. And many credit its success to financial incentives used to lure new teachers to low-performing schools. But the Benwood Initiative was about much more than pay incentives and attracting new teacher talent, concludes a new report from Education Sector.

In The Benwood Plan: A Lesson in Comprehensive Teacher Reform, Senior Policy Analyst Elena Silva argues that Benwood's success was not just about recruiting better teachers, but helping existing teachers improve the quality of their instruction. The report includes a new analysis of "value-added" teacher effectiveness data conducted for Education Sector, which indicates that over a period of six years, existing teachers in the eight Benwood elementary schools improved steadily.

"This improvement was by design," writes Silva. "The district invested heavily in mentoring programs … and in stronger and more collaborative leadership at the school level. At the same time, the Benwood Initiative was buoyed by better labor-management relations and a host of other reform efforts at the district level."

These findings have implications for other districts looking to turn around low-performing schools—of which there are many in the era of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Chattanooga Times Free Press
PEF is pleased to announce the hiring of Clara Sale-Davis, a 25-year veteran of public education, to lead the Benwood Initiative.

Chattanooga Times Free Press
The second phase of the Benwood Initiative is launched.  School improvement expert Patricia Davenport joins Hamilton County teachers to begin the year on a high note.

Chattanooga Times Free Press

Chattanooga Times Free Press

Chattanooga Times Free Press

Chattanoogan.com

Chattanooga Times Free Press

Chattanooga Times Free Press

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Chattanooga Times Free Press
Natalie Elder named top “K-8 Tennessee Effective Educator"

Chattanooga Times Free Press
Test scores advanced for disadvantaged students

Chattanooga Times Free Press

Education Trust’s Achievement Alliance highlights Benwood Schools

An audio podcast of PBS reporter John Merrow’s interview with 8 Benwood teachers

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
Special Correspondent for Education John Merrow reports on efforts to fix a group of troubled elementary schools in Tennessee.

As the eight schools of the Benwood Initiative complete the first phase of transformation, the Public Education Foundation and the Benwood Foundation have published two reports.

Challenging Myths: The Benwood Initiative and Education Reform in Hamilton County, by Claire Handley and Robert A. Kronley, Kronley & Associates (75-page comprehensive report)

 Lessons Learned: A Report on the Benwood Initiative (8-page summary)

Education Week
By bettering the teaching staffs at its inner-city schools, the Hamilton County school district is lessening the differences in achievement between such schools and their suburban counterparts.

Chattanooga Times Free Press
East Side Elementary School principal Emily Baker and her staff were proud to be noted by Reader’s Digest as one of two elementary schools reporting success proving "even the hardest-to-reach student can be inspired to learn."

Chattanooga Times Free Press Editorial
The growing recognition of rising achievement levels in the city's Benwood schools, and the report on this year's scores on SAT college entrance exams underscore the value of investing the resources needed to lift achievement in schools that often are dismissed disdainfully as 'low-performing.'

Chattanooga Times Free Press
In a report to Congress last week, U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige highlighted the partnership between Hamilton County Schools, the Benwood, Public Education and Weldon F. Osborne foundations and the city of Chattanooga to promote recruiting, training and retaining highly qualified teachers.

Chattanooga Times Free Press
Teachers and administrators participate in two-day professional Ddevelopment workshop

Third Annual Report on Teacher Quality
The combination of extensive, high-quality professional training, additional staff, strong building and district leadership and incentives has yielded exceptional improvement in all nine schools.

The Washington Post
Teachers transfer to poorest-performing schools in Chattanooga, TN as part of an effort to raise test scores

Chattanooga Times Free Press
Benwood Elementary Schools post higher gains in reading than top 10% of state.

Dallas Morning News
Chattanooga's incentives, shuffling of educators boost urban campuses