About TEI

Shaping the Future of Memphis

The children we welcomed into our kindergartens in fall 2011 will enter the work force or be college bound in the year 2024. What does the world of 2024 look like? What work will our children do? What will they invent, innovate, problem solve?

The world they must learn to navigate will continue to evolve at a pace—and in directions—that we are now only beginning to understand.

To prepare our students, we must prepare ourselves.
For change.
With change.
And that change begins with our teachers. After all, they are key to student success.

The change is well underway in the Memphis City Schools (MCS). In the 18 months since receiving a grant to improve teaching effectiveness from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, MCS has:

• changed who we hire to teach and how we hire them
• redefined what we mean by “teaching effectiveness”
• built new tools to measure teacher performance
• focused on providing the best in professional development and growth opportunities.

Our teachers are leading this change, providing critical counsel and collaboration as we shape a different future for our children. We can't wait for 2024 to get it right. We need to do better and be better for next year’s graduates—and the next year's, and the next. 

Through our Teacher Effectiveness Initiative, we will make the dramatic changes necessary to provide all students with the learning opportunities currently available only to students of our best teachers.

But we can’t do it without you.

Take the Pledge and Join the Movement at www.iteachiam.com.