We’ve Updated Our Look—See What’s New at TERA!

We are proud to unveil an updated brand and new website that both honor TERA’s long history as a preeminent source of education research in Tennessee and signify a new era of partnership work with many leaders across our great state. 

Founded in 2016 with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Tennessee Education Research Alliance (TERA) brought together leaders from Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College and the Tennessee Department of Education to launch one of the first education research-practice partnerships aimed at informing policy and practice at the state level. Through TERA, researchers across the country conduct actionable research, and findings have impacted how policymakers view and shape policies including teacher evaluation, school turnaround, school leadership, and teacher diversity.  With frequent citations in national, state, and regional news outlets, TERA continues to be a trusted resource for Tennessee policymakers and education leaders.

An Updated Look for a New Vision

Now in its eighth year, TERA has renewed its commitment to its long-standing partnership with the Tennessee Department of Education and we’ve cultivated new partnerships across the state with individual school districts, advocacy organizations, and other state agencies who seek to make a difference for kids through evidence-based policies and practices. Through empowering leaders with high-quality evidence and convening the right partners at the table to make lasting change, TERA aims to connect the dots between research and practice and ensure the findings from our research are actionable, easily understood, and widely accessible for continued learning. 

A Re-designed, User-Friendly Website 

Through our new website, we hope that everyone from our partners, to local education leaders, to community advocates, to policy wonks can learn from and engage with TERA’s past research and ongoing work. 

We invite you to explore our Publications page, which allows users to filter and sort by key topics and publication types. We also hope you check our Research page to learn about our partners and the research we’re doing together. 

Looking Ahead to 2025 and Beyond

Through this re-branding journey, we have realized that TERA is both old and new all at the same time, and we believe our refreshed look and our new and improved website give credence to how much we’ve learned with our partners over the years and help up us chart our new course in the years to come.