The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) has a new leader.
From an email:
We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Diarese George to our team! After an extensive national search, Dr. George has been selected as NPEF’s new President and CEO and will be starting in his role on August 4. He is currently the founder and executive director of the Tennessee Educators of Color Alliance (TECA) and previously served in a variety of roles serving the education ecosystem in Nashville and Tennessee, including as the director of recruitment for the Nashville Teacher Residency and as a high school teacher in the Clarksville/Montgomery County school district. We are looking forward to how his expertise and collaborative spirit will help NPEF advance outcomes for Nashville’s students. You can learn more about Dr. Diarese George in our official announcement here.
Nashville Public Education Foundation names Dr. Diarese George next CEO
The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) announced that Dr. Diarese George will be the organization’s next President and CEO.
From a press release:
“From direct experience, including time as a teacher, Dr. George understands the challenges and opportunities in Nashville’s public education system,” said Ralph Davis, chair of the NPEF Board of Directors. “He brings passion and data-driven insight to his work and we are excited about what NPEF will accomplish under Dr. George’s leadership.”
“As a former teacher, nonprofit founder, and advocate, I know the power and exponential impact that great schools and great educators make in a student’s life,” said Dr. George. “I’m honored to lead NPEF into its next chapter and advance its strong legacy of building connections and partnerships that ensure every student in Nashville has the opportunity and access to succeed.”
Before leading TECA, Dr. George served as director of recruitment for the Nashville Teacher Residency, where he drove efforts to diversify the educator workforce by recruiting more people of color into the profession. Prior to that, he was a high school business teacher in the Clarksville/Montgomery County school district. Known for his deep networking and relationship-building skills, Dr. George has held several national and statewide fellowships, including Education Pioneers’ Summer Fellowship, the Tennessee State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) Educator Fellowship, Hope Street Group Teacher Fellowship, and the Mosaic Fellowship, which empowers education leaders of color across Tennessee. His passion for advancing education is further reflected in his service on statewide councils, boards, and committees.
From an email from Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF):
We are looking forward to the annual Public Schools Hall of Fame event on September 30, 2025, where we will honor outstanding educators, nonprofits, and leaders in our community. This year’s honorees represent exceptional dedication and expertise and have shown tremendous commitment to our public schools, students, teachers, and families. We invite you to visit our website to learn more about the event, meet the honorees, and save the date to join us.
On Tuesday, June 24, Old Dominion’s Matthew Ramsey presents a donation of $50,000 on behalf of The Ramsey Foundation to the “BAND TOGETHER” fundraiser to help save the concert band program at J.T. Moore Middle School in Nashville, TN.
On March 28, 2025, it was announced that J.T. Moore Middle School’s long-standing band program would be eliminated for the 2025–2026 school year. In response, a passionate group of parents launched the “BAND TOGETHER” campaign with the mission to save the school’s concert band program and keep music education alive. With generous support from Matthew Ramsey and The Ramsey Foundation, the campaign has raised over $65,000, enough to hire a part-time band director for the upcoming year. The campaign’s goal is to reach $92,000 by June 30 to fund a full-time band teacher and keep the music alive for all grades.
The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) announced honorees for its 2025 Public Schools Hall of Fame.
The honorees this year are:
Inspiring Leader: Cane Ridge Elementary Executive Principal Dr. Chris Plummer
Inspiring Educators:Addison Barrack, a Students with Interrupted Formal Education (SIFE) educator at Antioch High School.
Montrell Williams, an Integrated Mathematics 1 Teacher at Whites Creek High School.
Inspiring Organizations:Adroit, an organization dedicated to expanding equitable access to STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education for students of all backgrounds. Through its LEGO and robotics team, the Pioneers, Adroit empowers underrepresented youth to build foundational STEM skills and tackle real-world challenges.
Nashville Tools for Schools, an organization working to “build for our children’s future” by building custom furniture, shelving and storage cabinets, and outdoor items for MNPS schools. Nashville Tools for Schools leverages retired community members with skills in woodworking to create items that enhance libraries and classrooms across the district.
The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) will soon be seeking a new President and CEO. Katie Cour, who has led the advocacy nonprofit for more than six years, is moving on to a new opportunity.
An email sent by NPEF explains:
Today we are sharing the bittersweet news that Katie Cour, our president and CEO, will be stepping away from NPEF after over six years with the organization. We are extremely grateful to Katie for the transformative work she has helped us achieve and the strong partnerships she has built.
During her tenure, Katie has been a strategic thinker, leader, and collaborator dedicated to addressing critical challenges in public education, and she has helped spark important conversations about improving outcomes for students. As NPEF’s president and CEO, she has shaped initiatives such as Teacherpreneur, a partnership with Metro Schools and the Mayor’s Office to improve teacher pay, NPEF’s documentary “By Design: The Shaping of Nashville’s Public Schools,” and the launch of the Nashville Child and Youth Collaborative alongside other local nonprofits.
Cour’s last day is July 3, 2025. The group will conduct a national search for its next leader.
The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) announced the newest recipients of their Hall of Fame honor.
Janet Miller, this year’s Nelson C. Andrews Distinguished Service Award honoree. Janet has served as a real estate and development leader in Nashville for over 30 years. She is currently the CEO and Market Leader as well as the incoming Vice Chairman of Colliers Nashville. Janet proudly declares the foundation for her success is the public education she received in Nashville, which has guided and inspired her service to our community throughout her career
We are also excited to announce this year’s Distinguished Alumni honorees. These individuals have shown exemplary leadership and service in our community and are inspiring examples of the incredible talent cultivated by Metro Nashville Public Schools.
Martesha Johnson Moore, a graduate of Whites Creek High School, is the Nashville Metropolitan Chief Public Defender.
Marlene Eskind Moses, a graduate of Hillsboro High School, is an internationally recognized family law attorney at GSRM Law.
Tom Parrish, a graduate of Hillwood High School, now known as James Lawson High School, is the Chief Operating Officer at the Scarlett Family Foundation where he manages the day-to-day operations and relationships with grant seekers, recipients, and key business partners.
The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) announced the addition of three new board members today. Here’s more from the press release:
The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) has appointed three new members to its Board of Directors, including Michelle Gaskin Brown, manager at Amazon; Kate Chinn, former vice president at AllianceBernstein; and Dr. L. Gregory Jones, president of Belmont University. Additionally, Meg Harris, the current board vice-chair and vice president of people at Ancestry, will take over as the foundation’s board chair on July 1, 2022. Harris succeeds Tony Heard, a partner at InfoWorks.
Readers may recall that NPEF first warned about the dangers of Bill Lee’s new school funding formula (TISA) and then ended up backing the plan that, by their own admission, would mean less funding for Nashville’s schools.
TISA is a timely and needed update to school funding. Here's why NPEF supports TISA while continuing to push for improvements: https://t.co/8PjU9nXqdk
It’s interesting that NPEF noted that the BEP created an “unattainable burden” for districts like Nashville and then supported a funding scheme that actually leaves Nashville worse off than before the BEP.
I wrote recently about Tipton County opting out of portfolio evaluation for Fine Arts teachers after participating the past four years. The move came in response to a letter a group of teachers sent to the Tipton County School Board.
Now, Nashville has also decided to opt out of Fine Arts portfolios for the 2018-19 academic year. While this had been raised as a possibility toward the end of last year, it wasn’t clear MNPS would move away from the portfolio model this year.
MNPS took the time to survey Fine Arts teachers and then used that feedback to inform their decision. The largest number of teachers responding voted to stop participating in the Fine Arts portfolio now and in future years. Another significant group wanted to at least pause the portfolio for a year and evaluate options going forward.
As a result, MNPS will now hold focus groups with Fine Arts teachers in the Spring to determine evaluation options for 2019-20 and beyond.
The move in Nashville comes as the portfolio evaluation model is losing favor around the state due to both poor implementation and lack of beneficial impact on instruction.
Prior to the start of this school year, five of sixteen districts participating in the Fine Arts portfolio indicated they would drop it for 2018-19. Now, Tipton and Nashville have opted out. This leaves nine districts who were previous participants plus Sumner County, a district that added portfolio evaluation over the objections of Fine Arts teachers there.
A line from the letter Tipton County teachers sent to their School Board explains why so many districts are moving away from this evaluation model:
While we appreciate the theory behind it, in real practice the portfolio process is not an effective one. What has occurred over the past several years is that portfolio has changed our lesson structures, negatively impacted our students’ classroom experience, and it has failed to provide feedback to help us improve as teachers.
It will be interesting to see if any other districts move away from this model ahead of the roll-out of the new portfolio evaluation platform from new (the third in three years) vendor Portfolium.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
The Director of Schools in Maury County has joined those in Memphis and Nashville in calling for a pause in TNReady as a result of repeated problems with the testing platform.
The Columbia Daily Heraldreports Maury County Director of Schools Chris Marczak said he agrees with the letter sent by Dorsey Hopson of Memphis and Shawn Joseph of Nashville. Marczak offered an alternative:
“I believe it would be best for us to focus solely on the ACT and align ourselves with outcomes that can affect students’ college acceptance and scholarship ability,” Marczak said.
Maury County district leadership has indicated the results from this year’s botched test administration are of limited value:
“Due to the issues with testing, we will not be adding TNReady/EOC data to the Keys’ scorecards for either the district or the school levels when they eventually come in,” Marczak said in an email sent to staff in July. “In light of the numerous testing issues, please know that the results of the assessments will be used to inform conversation only. These are the conversations we will have with principals and the principals will have with teachers/staffs.”
In response to the ongoing testing issues, Marczak shared accounts of students completing 75-minute long examinations in 10 minutes. When reviewing the examinations, Marczak said the district had over 600 missing scores. Questar, the contractor hired by the state to administer the test, reported that 600 individual assessments were incomplete.
Despite the growing concern over the inability to effectively administer the TNReady test, Commissioner of Education Candice McQueen has said the test is still an important tool:
TNReady serves as a vital feedback loop for teachers, parents, and administrators to tell us where we are, and the results inform what steps we need to take to help all students and schools succeed.”
TNReady might be an important feedback loop if it ever worked the way it was intended. But it hasn’t. Instead, it’s been fraught with problems since the beginning. Now, education leaders are standing up and speaking out.
The push to pause TNReady and possibly move forward with a different measure comes at the same time the TDOE is being taken to task for a failure to properly execute Pre-K/Kindergarten portfolios. Knox County’s School Board last night voted to send a message that they have “no confidence” in the portfolio process or in the TDOE.
The push against TNReady from key district leaders figures to make the test and overall administration of the Department of Education a key issue in the 2018 gubernatorial and state legislative elections.
For more on education politics and policy in Tennessee, follow @TNEdReport
