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Education in Tennessee

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Education in Tennessee covers public and private schools and related organizations from the 18th century to the present.

State government operations are administered by the Tennessee Department of Education.[1] The state Board of Education has 11 members: one from each Congressional district, a student member, and the executive director of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC), who serves as ex-officio nonvoting member.[2]

History

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Black schools

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Protestant activists created the Western Freedmen's Aid Commission in Cincinnati in January 1863. Its goal was to set up schools for freed slaves in Union-controlled districts in the western states. It was most active in Tennessee, where, in 1865, its 123 white teachers provided manual and domestic training as well as academic instruction. There were 1949 students in Memphis and over 300 in Clarksville. Starting in 1865 the government's Freemen's Bureau provided the school buildings and the Commission provided the teachers, typically young women from the New England diaspora.[3]</ref>[4]

Public and private schools

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Public primary and secondary education systems are operated by county, city, or special school districts to provide education at the local level, and operate under the direction of the Tennessee Department of Education.[1] The state also has many private schools.[5]

The state enrolls approximately 1 million K–12 students in 137 districts.[6] In 2021, the four-year high school graduation rate was 88.7%, a decrease of 1.2% from the previous year.[7] According to the most recent data, Tennessee spends $9,544 per student, the 8th lowest in the nation.[8]

Higher education

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Main article: List of colleges and universities in Tennessee
Kirkland Hall at Vanderbilt University in Nashville
Vanderbilt University in Nashville is consistently ranked as one of the top research institutions in the nation

Public higher education is overseen by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC), which provides guidance to the state's two public university systems. The University of Tennessee system operates four primary campuses in Knoxville, Chattanooga, Martin, and Pulaski; a Health Sciences Center in Memphis; and an aerospace research facility in Tullahoma.[9] The Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR), also known as The College System of Tennessee, operates 13 community colleges and 27 campuses of the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology (TCAT).[10] Until 2017, the TBR also operated six public universities in the state; it now only gives them administrative support.[11]

In January 1952, the University of Tennessee was the first major southern university to admit blacks.[12]

In 2014, the Tennessee General Assembly created the Tennessee Promise, which allows in-state high school graduates to enroll in two-year post-secondary education programs such as associate degrees and certificates at community colleges and trade schools in Tennessee tuition-free, funded by the state lottery, if they meet certain requirements.[13] The Tennessee Promise was created as part of then-governor Bill Haslam's "Drive to 55" program, which set a goal of increasing the number of college-educated residents to at least 55% of the state's population.[13] The program has also received national attention, with multiple states having since created similar programs modeled on the Tennessee Promise.[14]

Tennessee has 107 private institutions.[15] Vanderbilt University in Nashville is consistently ranked as one of the nation's leading research institutions.[16] Nashville is often called the "Athens of the South" due to its many colleges and universities.[17] Tennessee is also home to six historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).[18]

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ a b Lyons, Scheb, & Stair 2001, pp. 286–287.
  2. ^ "Governor Appointed State School Board Members Process Requirements - Statutes, Rules and Regulations" (PDF). ncsl.org. Washington, D.C.: National Conference of State Legislatures. January 2011. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 27, 2021. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  3. ^ William Preston Vaughn, Schools for All: The Blacks and Public Education in the South, 1865–1877 (1974), p. 4.
  4. ^ Alrutheus Ambush Taylor, The Negro in Tennessee, 1865-1880 (1941) pp. 168-170.
  5. ^ "Nonpublic Schools". tn.gov. Nashville: Tennessee Department of Education. Archived from the original on May 27, 2021. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  6. ^ "Education Choices in Tennessee". tn.gov. Nashville: Tennessee Department of Education. Archived from the original on May 27, 2021. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  7. ^ "TDOE Releases 2020-21 Graduation Rate Data" (Press release). Nashville: Tennessee Department of Education. November 23, 2021. Retrieved June 23, 2022.
  8. ^ Rau, Nate (March 25, 2021). "Education funding in TN reaches breaking point as BEP lawsuit advances". Tennessee Lookout. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  9. ^ "About the UT System". tennessee.edu. Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee System.
  10. ^ "Our Institutions". tbr.edu. Nashville: Tennessee Board of Regents. May 2018. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  11. ^ Roberts, Jane (June 9, 2016). "Haslam marks University of Memphis independence from Board of Regents". The Commercial Appeal. Memphis. Retrieved May 26, 2021.
  12. ^ Raffel, p. xxv.
  13. ^ a b Carruthers, Celeste (May 6, 2019). "5 things to know about the Tennessee Promise Scholarship". Brookings Institution. Retrieved October 7, 2020.
  14. ^ Tamburin, Adam (February 9, 2017). "Tennessee Promise inspires national trend". The Tennessean. Nashville, TN. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  15. ^ "College Navigator - Search Results". nces.gov. National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved May 27, 2021.
  16. ^ "Vanderbilt University". Forbes. 2019. Retrieved April 26, 2020.
  17. ^ Kreyling, Christine M; Paine, Wesley; Warterfield, Charles W; Wiltshire, Susan Ford (1996). Classical Nashville: Athens of the South. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. ISBN 0-585-13200-3.
  18. ^ "HBCU Schools in Tennessee - 2018 Ranking". hbcu-colleges.com. Retrieved May 27, 2021.

Further reading

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  • Baker, A. Paige, and Dengke Xu. "The Measure of Education: A Review of the Tennessee Value Added Assessment System." (1995) online in ERIC.
  • Doak, H. M. "The Development of Education in Tennessee." The American Historical Magazine and Tennessee Historical Society Quarterly 8.1 (1903): 64-90; coverage to 1880. online
  • Goldhaber, Dan, and Karen Callahan. "Impact of the Basic Education Program on educational spending and equity in Tennessee." Journal of Education Finance 26.4 (2001): 415-435. [Goldhaber, Dan, and Karen Callahan. "Impact of the Basic Education Program on educational spending and equity in Tennessee." Journal of Education Finance 26.4 (2001): 415-435. online]
  • Israel, Charles Alan. Before scopes: evangelicalism, education, and evolution in Tennessee, 1870-1925 (University of Georgia Press, 2004) online.
  • Lyons, William; Scheb II, John M.; Stair, Billy (2001). Government and Politics in Tennessee. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 9781572331419 – via Google Books.
  • Merriam, Lucius Salisbury. Higher education in Tennessee (US Government Printing Office, 1893) online.
  • Rolle, Anthony, and Keke Liu. "An empirical analysis of horizontal and vertical equity in the public schools of Tennessee, 1994-2003." Journal of Education Finance (2007): 328-351. online
  • SAMPLES, RALPH EDWARD.  "THE DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC EDUCATION IN TENNESSEE DURING THE BOURBON ERA, 1870-1900" (PhD dissertation, University of Tennessee; ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,  1965. 6608205).
  • Williams, Frank B. “John Eaton, Jr., Editor, Politician, and School Administrator, 1865-1870.” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 10#4 (1951), pp. 291–319. online

Race

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  • Fleming, Cynthia Griggs. "The development of Black Education in Tennessee, 1865-1920" (PhD dissertation, Duke University, 1977) online.
  • Fraser, Walter J. "John Eaton, Jr., Radical Republican: Champion of the Negro and Federal Aid to Education." Tennessee Historical Quarterly 25.3 (1966): 239+ online
  • Hodgson, Frank McGuire. "Northern Missionary Aid Societies, the Freedmen's Bureau, and Their Effects on Education in Montgomery County, Tennessee" West Tennessee Historical Society Papers 43 (1989): 28-43.
  • Hoffschwelle, Mary. "The Federal Connection: Impact Aid and Black Public Education in Milan, 1874–1975." Tennessee Historical Quarterly 75.1 (2016): 28-63. online
  • Kickler, Troy Lee, "Black Children and Northern Missionaries, Freedmen's Bureau Agents, and Southern Whites in Reconstruction Tennessee, 1865 -1869. " PhD dissertation, University of Tennessee, 2005) online
  • McGehee, C. Stuart. "E. 0. Tade, Freedmen's Education, and the Failure of Reconstruction in Tennessee." Tennessee Historical Quarterly 43 (1984): 378-380. online
  • Phillips, Paul David. "Education of Blacks in Tennessee During Reconstruction, 1865-1870." Tennessee Historical Quarterly 46.2 (1987): 98-109. online
  • Raffel, Jeffrey. Historical dictionary of school segregation and desegregation: The American experience (Greenwood, 1998) online
  • Ramsey, Sonya Yvette. "More than the three R's: The educational economic, and cultural experiences of African American female public school teachers in Nashville, Tennessee, 1869 to 1983" (PhD dissertation, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2000) online.
  • Savage, Carter Julian. "Cultural capital and African American agency: The economic struggle for effective education for African Americans in Franklin, Tennessee, 1890-1967." Journal of African American History 87.2 (2002): 206-235. online
  • Savage, Carter Julian. " 'Because We Did More With Less': The Agency of African American Teachers in Franklin, Tennessee: 1890-1967." Peabody Journal of Education 76.2 (2001): 170-203. online
  • Taylor, Alrutheus Ambush. The Negro in Tennessee, 1865-1880 (1941)
  • Smithwick, Brannon Marie. "Educating Generations: The Legacy and Future of the Allen-White School Campus, a Rosenwald School in Whiteville, Tennessee" (PhD dissertation, University of Southern California, 2023) online.
  • STITELY, THOMAS BEANE.   "BRIDGING THE GAP: A HISTORY OF THE ROSENWALD FUND IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF RURAL NEGRO SCHOOLS IN TENNESSEE 1912-1932." (PhD dissertation, Peabody College for Teachers of Vanderbilt University) ProQuest Dissertations Publishing,  1975. 7522292).
  • Whipple, Lorena B., "African American Oral Histories of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, Public Schools During the Early Days of Desegregation, 1955 – 1967. " (PhD dissertation, University of Tennessee, 2013) online

Primary sources

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  • Eaton, John. First Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Tennessee, Ending Thursday, October 7th, 1869 (1869) online.
  • Graf, Leroy P. "Education in East Tennessee, 1867-1869, Selections from the John Eaton, Jr. Papers." East Tennessee Historical Society's Publications 23 (1951).
  • Swint, Henry Lee, ed. "Reports from Educational Agents of the Freedmen's Bureau in Tennessee, 1865- 1870." Tennessee Historical Quarterly 1#1 (1942): 52-80, 152-170.
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