Tennessee Educator Survey: Using Educator Feedback to Shape Policy and Practice

Since 2017, we have partnered with the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) and Peabody College’s Tennessee Education Research Alliance (TERA) to design, administer, and evaluate the annual Tennessee Educator Survey (TES).  As the only statewide educator survey in Tennessee, the TES examines a variety of areas, including school culture, school leadership, instructional practice, and teacher and administrator evaluation.  The survey is used for research purposes and to inform state and district-level policies (see: here, here, here, here and here). Past surveys have resulted in changes like incentive bonuses for teachers to remain in Priority schools, increased teacher collaboration time, and opportunities for teachers to work with principals to address school-specific issues.

Each year, Basis works with state and district policy-makers and educational researchers to define survey priorities, use last year’s results to refine questions, and curate new survey sections. We then build, test, and administer the survey in an electronic platform, providing district- and school-level response rates twice a week throughout the administration window. Result files are shared with researchers, state, district, and school leaders, and the public.