I invite you to Explore, Engage and Enjoy, (NAESP 04) the idea of academic leadership for Memphis City Schools.  As the outgoing president of the Tennessee Association of Elementary and Middle School Principals, (TAEMSP), I consider it my mission to lead in the advocacy for higher student achievement in the Memphis City Schools.  It is a wonderful pleasure to serve you as your Elementary Academic Superintendent for Area 2. 

Success, respect and high achievement!!

WE CAN DO THIS!!!

In 1979, Ron Edmonds, often termed the nations first expert on high-performing schools, identified the most tangible and indispensable characteristics of effective schools as:

• Strong administrative leadership
• High expectations for all students
• An orderly and quiet, though not rigid and oppressive atmosphere
• Clear focus on academics
• Readiness to direct school energy and resources from other matters to academics
• The frequent monitoring of student progress (Fordham Foundation, 2004)

Most recently, Samuel Casey Carter highlighted 21 successful schools located in poor urban neighborhoods across the country.  In No Excuses: Lessons from 21 High-Performing, High-Poverty Schools, published in 2000; he outlined these SEVEN COMMON TRAITS:

1. Principals who are free to use their resources, financial and curricular, to run the school
2. Principals who use measurable goals to establish a culture of achievement
3. The presence of master teachers who bring out the best in a faculty
4. Rigorous and regular testing focused on continuous student achievement
5. Achievement as the key to discipline
6. Principals who work with parents to make the home/school a center for learning
7. Hard work on the part of all school faculty and students