The new rules mean tests will account for 40% of a high school student’s grade, classwork 35%, projects 10%, homework 10%, and class participation 5%. And it will be the same whether it’s an algebra class in Whitehaven or a biology class in Frayser.

The University of Memphis is closing its Olympic-size outdoor pool as part of additions and renovations. Friday was the last day of use for the pool.

Sexton has strong ties to public education. He attended schools in Knox County before graduating in 1989 from Oak Ridge High School in neighboring Anderson County. His mother was a kindergarten teacher for more than 30 years, and his grandfather was a principal.

Rap superstar Yo Gotti announces partnership with Shelby County Schools to outfit students at his former middle school with free uniforms. The music mogul said he hopes to expand the program to more schools in the district.

Results from the latest Tennessee Educator Survey are both troubling and encouraging in a state that has fostered gains on national student tests but also is seeing a gradual decline in its number of teacher candidates.

Across the city, college and university students are returning by the tens of thousands. Rhodes College held its Opening Convocation ceremony Friday, while 170 new medical students put on their new white coats in a ceremony at UTHSC.

A new early childhood center will open in 2022 in an area around the University of Memphis' Park Avenue campus.

More than 40% of elementary and middle school students met the state’s proficiency standards in math, compared to 36.5% in 2018. 

Only 3.4% of high schoolers in the Achievement School District met the state’s proficiency standards on this year’s math and English exams, while 12.6% of elementary students reached that benchmark.

The district’s students did not make as much progress as other students across the state, earning Shelby County Schools the lowest score on the state’s 5-point growth scale.

TNReady scores showed Arlington, Bartlett, Collierville Germantown and Lakeland are among the top-performing districts in the state. Lakeland was designated as an Exemplary district by the Tennessee Department of Education.

Miska Clay Bibbs will remain on the Shelby County Schools board after taking the TFA job. Keith Williams, executive director of the Memphis-Shelby County Education Association, wrote in a text message that Bibbs should resign.

TNReady tests are designed to assess every student’s true understanding of the material they’ve studied, not just memorized. The goal is to know how to help students advance their knowledge and skills, teachers raise their level of instruction, and districts improve their schools.

Students were welcomed back to Dunbar Elementary School by the principal, teachers and community groups. The school is now part of the Shelby County Schools Innovation Zone. 

Tennessee’s State Department of Education, as well as the state’s two largest school districts, Memphis and Nashville, are heading into their first new school year after major leadership changes.

During a recent orientation, newly hired teachers learned more about the Shelby County Schools focus on social and emotional learning. 

About 24% of third-graders in Shelby County Schools scored proficient in reading on the state’s standardized assessment TNReady, down from about 27% last year. Statewide, 36% of elementary students tested proficient.

Brother Stanislaus Sobczyk, who led Christian Brothers University from 1999-2005, has died.

A two-day robotics training program at the University of Memphis is trying to show teachers that leading students in robotics and technology isn’t so difficult.

Terry Ross, who had served as principal at Kingsbury High School since 2014, was suspended with pay a year ago. He now will be an advisor with a new program for schools leaving the district’s most rigorous program for low-performing schools.

When a landmark study found that children in Tennessee’s pre-K program eventually fared worse than peers who didn’t participate, the surprising results unleashed a new wave of research to understand why.

On the literacy front, the district is adding teacher assistants in second grade and implementing a phonics curriculum this year to ramp up a plan to hold back students in second grade if they don’t meet certain reading benchmarks in the 2021-22 school year.

The policy gives the board the ability to deny a charter school application to open in a neighborhood with relatively few students; establishes a timeline for revoking a school’s charter if it shows poor academic results; and provides schools a chance to compete for free rent in district buildings.

It’s a reprieve for low-performing schools that are academically in the state’s bottom 5%, known as priority schools. Most are in Memphis and Nashville and were expected to receive some of the lowest letter grades. 

Carol Johnson-Dean, superintendent of Memphis City Schools from 2003-2007, before leaving to take the top job at Boston Public Schools, will replace Andrea Miller. The LeMoyne-Owen board didn't renew Miller's contract.