He taught bilingual first- and second-grade students in English and Spanish for the Houston Independent School District.
After law school, he joined the Washington, DC, law firm of Hogan & Hartson, where he represented school districts, state departments of education and universities, and worked on policy and litigation matters including challenges to state finance systems, desegregation litigation, and special education hearings and trials.
[5][6] In March 2011, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam announced that he was appointing Huffman to head the state's Department of Education.
[4] In his first months as head of the Tennessee Department of Education, Huffman oversaw the implementation of a new evaluation system for teachers and school principals that seeks to provide a comprehensive look at educator performance based on multiple measures of effectiveness, including classroom observations, student academic growth, and locally selected measures of student achievement.
[17] In December 2014, Tennessee was ranked 2nd of 17 states for its charter school policy environment that promotes both quality and accountability.
[18] Huffman also oversaw consistently improved student achievement on the state's annual Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP).
[20] Huffman also created a structure to provide more than 30,000 Tennessee educators with insight and training on teaching the Common Core State Standards.