Kathryn Palmer, Chalkbeat Tennessee

More than 400 schools across 85 Tennessee districts made the state’s 2019 list of “reward schools.” The 427 schools make up the largest number of top-performing schools, breaking last year’s record of 318 schools. This is the third list of reward schools the state has published...

There’s still three weeks before school starts in Memphis, but on a recent afternoon, the parking lot at Hickory Ridge Middle School was packed. Veteran kindergarten teacher Sandra Jenkins pulled up at 3:17 p.m. and parked her sage green Toyota Corolla along a curb on...

When Tennessee’s middle school social studies teachers return to their classrooms this August, they’ll still be required to teach about world religions. But the new state standards leave less room for interpretation. “We’re not here to indoctrinate our students, but to educate them,” social studies...