Founded by Senator Bill Frist, M.D., who also serves as the chairman, the State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) has played a crucial role in advancing student achievement in the state of Tennessee since 2009. Every year the organization releases a report on the annual milestones of both SCORE and the broader Tennessee education community, and presents recommendations for the next year. At a recent event, SCORE reviewed the four education priorities they believe the state should pursue in 2026 and beyond.
“Tennessee has always moved with purpose and intention, and our progress shows what is possible when we work together for students,” said Senator Frist at the event. “For more than 15 years, we have raised expectations and expanded opportunity, and those efforts have helped transform the classroom experience for many more students across our state. But progress is not a signal to slow down — it is a call to go even further.”
In the SCORE report, it is stated that TN2030, a data-driven vision aimed at ensuring every Tennessee student is on a clear path to success in the classroom, career and life, was created so Tennesseans can see if students are on track, where gaps remain, and how the future could shift to a “one more student per classroom” agenda. In late 2025, SCORE launched district- and institution-specific TN2030 dashboards, giving communities a clear, annual view of progress. These dashboards show both current performance and what growth could look like if they meet the ambitious “one more student” goal pace. The four TN2030 “one more student” goals are:
- By 2030, 71% of Tennessee third graders are reading and writing on grade level. Currently, the state is at 42%.
- By 2030, 58% of Tennessee seventh graders are proficient in math. As of 2025, that rate is 39%.
- By 2030, 77% of all graduating high school students in Tennessee pursue a postsecondary opportunity, be it college or training in a trade. Now, that rate is 56%.
- By 2030, 64% of postsecondary students in Tennessee complete a degree or credential, with 75% of those being impact credentials fulfilling current and future business needs. That rate is 45% today.
Sen. Frist said this year’s report reflects both the progress the state has achieved and the work still ahead to address persistent gaps in student achievement, postsecondary completion, and career preparation.
According to this year’s report, four priorities SCORE presented to help propel the state forward in these education and economic development needs are:
Transform Education into an Engine for Economic Opportunity.
While Tennessee’s postsecondary attainment rate has risen to 48.8%, workforce projections show that by 2031, nearly two-thirds of jobs will require education beyond high school. And, currently, nearly 70% of employers are saying there are not enough appropriately trained workers to meet demand.
Thanks to landmark initiatives and investments — like Tennessee Promise, outcomes-based funding, the Governor’s Investment in Vocational Education, Innovative School Models grants, and a $1 billion TCAT expansion — Tennessee has laid a solid foundation for positive change. These efforts have helped to improve completion and increase access while showing the state’s ability to drive bold education reform. However, despite this meaningful progress in expanding access to education and training after high school, many students still struggle to see a clear path from education to career.
This priority is focused on ensuring every student has a clear, intentional path toward earning an impactful credential that will prepare them for the current and future job market. The report notes that this path should be supported by dual enrollment opportunities, high-quality work-based learning, quality advising, and clear alignment of outcomes with labor market needs. Students who continue their education and earn credentials beyond high school consistently secure higher wages, enjoy greater job stability, and experience more resilient careers. The objective of this priority is to turn learning into action and preparation into economic progress for the state as a whole.
Elevate Excellence in Teaching as Tennessee’s Most Powerful Investment
Great teaching is the single most important in-school driver of student learning and long-term success. When Tennessee invests in supporting, retaining, and rewarding excellent teachers, every student benefits. A focus on effective teaching has been a longstanding priority for the state. Over the last several years, Tennessee has pursued new approaches to bolster student access to effective teachers, such as pioneering teaching apprenticeships, expanding licensure pathways, reducing financial barriers to preparation, and incrementally raising the minimum teacher salary.
Teacher effectiveness in the state is based on multiple measures, including student achievement, student growth, and classroom observation scores. The distribution of teacher effectiveness ratings should not be expected to perfectly mirror student proficiency rates. However, the current degree of misalignment with student outcomes — and the inflation of overall effectiveness ratings — suggests the system does not provide meaningful differentiation of effective teaching. Nearly all Tennessee teachers are rated “effective,” and most are rated “highly effective,” while only 42% of students are meeting grade-level expectations in English language arts and 39% in math.
SCORE believes it is time for Tennessee to redefine excellence in teaching. Doing so requires a renewed focus on three commitments: improving how teachers are evaluated and developed, ensuring instruction is aligned and connected across all tiers of learning, and creating pathways that allow great teachers to grow in the profession without having to leave the classroom.
Expand Access to High-Quality School Options for Every Family, in Every Community
Students and families have more educational choices than ever before, therefore it is imperative that Tennessee ensure these choices include high-quality public options that meet all families’ needs, deliver strong academic outcomes, and prepare students for future work and life success. Too often, opportunity is determined by geography or limited by complex policies that fail to adapt to students’ realities and needs. To improve the system, Tennessee must expand access to high quality public options that are transparent, well-resourced, and accountable for results. By building an environment for a range of schools to thrive, Tennessee can make good on its promise of success for every student, in every community.
By strengthening funding and streamlining authorization for charter schools, and guaranteeing access to quality schools within and across school districts, more Tennessee students will have the opportunity to succeed. In 2025, Tennessee’s 119 public charter schools serve more than 44,000 students across five geographic districts. Concentrated largely in metropolitan areas, these schools enroll higher proportions of students of color and economically disadvantaged students than traditional public schools. Students of color and economically disadvantaged students in charter schools are reaching proficiency in English language arts and math at higher rates than their peers in non-charter schools, and charters consistently demonstrate higher year-over-year student growth. Tennessee charter schools have become an essential driver of educational opportunity for historically underserved student groups and a proven tool for closing achievement gaps.
Strengthen Accountability Systems to Turn Data into Action and Insight into Impact
In 2025, the Tennessee Department of Education announced plans to submit an Every Student Succeeds Act waiver to replace the current dual accountability systems – one federal and one state — with a unified accountability framework. This represents a pivotal opportunity to simplify how school performance is measured, ensure consistency between state and federal reporting, and focus the system squarely on improving student outcomes.
A unified framework should combine the best elements of both systems by retaining the rigor of federal subgroup reporting, the transparency of state letter grades, and a balanced focus on growth and achievement to give families clear, actionable information about school performance. As this unified system takes shape, aligning it more closely with the state’s education and workforce goals will be essential.
The College and Career Readiness indicator, which tracks students who earn postsecondary credit or meet early postsecondary opportunity benchmarks, is a stronger measure of readiness than the federal Ready Graduate metric, which focuses on program participation rather than successful completion.
To help unpack and illuminate the importance of these four priorities, a panel of expert leaders from across the state discussed practical applications, barriers to overcome, and tangible next steps at the one-day conference.
“Advancing these priorities requires a shared commitment across the state to prepare students for careers enabling economic independence, to strengthen teaching, to expand high-quality public school options, and to use data to drive continuous improvement,” said David Mansouri, president and CEO of SCORE. “By working together, we can ensure that every student has the support, opportunities, and guidance they need to succeed.”
SCORE is an independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan advocacy and research organization working to catalyze transformative change in Tennessee education so all students can succeed. The organization works to advance student-centered policies and practices, supports and equips effective leaders, and pilots innovative programs that expand opportunity and improve outcomes from kindergarten through career.
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