State Lawmaker Plans to Introduce Bill to Help Math Retention Rates for Tennessee Students

State House Representative Scott Cepicky (R-Culleoka) told The Tennessee Star that he plans to introduce a new bill that closely resembles Temnnessee’s existing third-grade retention bill for literacy.

Tennessee implemented new policies last year to address low literacy rates among third-graders. This coming year, Tennessee lawmakers intend to turn their focus to mathematics.

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Tennessee Department of Education Releases District-Level TCAP Results

The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) released the 2022-23 Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) district-level results. TCAP provides insight into how school districts are performing across the state.

TDOE reported 68 out of 141 public school districts had 38.7 percent of students’ scores “met expectations” or “exceeded expectations” across all grades and subjects tested. An additional 19 districts reported 50 percent of students scored in the “met” or “exceeded” categories. Only nine districts failed to increase overall proficiency rates compared to last school year, while 107 increased those rates compared to the 2019-20 school year.

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TCAP Retakes Reveal Most Tennessee Third Graders Are Not Proficient in Language Arts

The Tennessee Department of Education released district-level data on Tuesday from the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) retake opportunity, one of the pathways to promotion for third-grade students who failed to score proficient on the original administration of the assessment.

Statewide, roughly 44,000 students, which translates to 60 percent of the state’s third-graders who took the initial assessment, did not score proficient on the spring TCAP English Language Arts assessment. By law, those students are eligible for a retake exam. According to the TDOE, over 25,000 students took advantage of the opportunity.

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Release of Tennessee Third-Grade Literacy Scores Produces Mixed Response

In the aftermath of the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) test data release for third-graders by the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE), legislators are pleased and encouraged, while parents are angry and confused.

On Friday, TDOE released scores to districts across the state. Due to the late distribution time, there was a variance in when parents received their child’s score. Some districts shared results with families on Friday night, while others in the larger urban districts didn’t receive results until Monday afternoon.

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Tennessee State Board of Education Defines Summer School Requirements for Third-Graders Facing Retention

As Tennessee school districts wait to receive scores from spring’s Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP), the State Board of Education (SBE) passed rules guiding the implications of those results.

The rules, crafted by the Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE), and passed by the SBE on Friday, will determine how many Tennessee’s third-graders will spend their summer months.

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Tennessee to Require Tipton County Schools to Take TCAP Tests

Despite having two schools recently destroyed by tornados, Tipton County students will still be required to participate in the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP). Crestview Elementary and Crestview Middle School were the two elementary schools destroyed during the tornados. 

Tipton County, a rural conservative county that borders the Mississippi River, had appealed directly to Governor Lee for relief from the burden of testing this year, due to the county still dealing with the after facts of two tornadoes that struck on March 31. According to a report from television station WREG, “The tornadoes damaged 540 structures, causing more than $37 million in damages.”

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Tennessee Testing Vendor Pearson Testifies in House Education Instruction Committee

Tennessee’s testing vendor, Pearson, testified on Tuesday to House Education Instruction Committee members. Pearson supplies Tennessee schools with both the state’s annual TNReady test and the recently adopted universal reading screener, AimsWeb Plus. The company took over the multi-million dollar state contract to create and administer the annual standardized test in 2020 after several years of missteps by then-vendor Queststar.

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Chair of Tennessee State Senate Education Committee Takes Third Grade TCAP Test

State Senator John Lundberg (R-Bristol) recently took the state test administered annually to Tennessee’s third-grade students. He said he found it to be fair, devoid of trick questions, and completable in a reasonable time frame.

In a phone conversation with The Tennessee Star, Lundberg said, “I heard a lot of concerns from parents around third-grade retention, and TCAP [Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program.] I felt I owed it to them to delve deeper into the subject, and so I asked the department of education to allow me to take the test.”

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State-Mandated Since 2021, the Third Grade Retention Law Has Tennessee State Legislators and Parents Calling for a Change

Lawmakers and parents are increasingly questioning Tennessee’s third-grade retention law. While Tennessee has long had legislation in place allowing districts the ability to retain third-grade students who did not score “proficient” on TCAP, the previous law left the decision up to local districts. Legislation passed during 2021’s Special Session took that decision out of local districts’ hands and made it state-mandated. A move that state lawmakers are now openly questioning.

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Tennessee Says Students Upped English, Math Scores After 2022 Assessment

The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) says that its students have rebounded after the COVID-19 pandemic, and that Math and English Language Arts (ELA) scores increased in the 2021-2022 school year. 

“Results from the 2021-22 TCAP assessments show that elementary students significantly improved their ELA scores and are performing at a level similar to pre-pandemic years,” said a TDOE press release. “Additionally, improved performance in math was evident for Tennessee students of all ages. Every student group showed an increase in proficiency as demonstrated on the 2022 TCAP assessments.”

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Maury County School System Test Scores Are Below State Average

The Maury County School System has performed below the state average on state assessments in math, English, science, and social studies, according to the Tennessee Department of Education’s website. This, according to an academic achievement indicator that measures the percentage of students who perform on grade level on state assessments as well as the improvement in this percentage from one year to the next “A student is considered on grade level if he or she scores on track or mastered on state exams, known as TNReady or TCAP,” according to the TDOE’s website. “Schools, districts, and the state can perform well on this indicator by having an overall high percentage of students on grade level or a significant increase in this percentage.” The data below is from the 2017-18 school year for Maury County: • Overall, 27.5 percent of Maury County students scored on track or mastered on annual state tests compared to the state average of 39.1 percent. • The mathematics achievement rate for Maury County was 20 percent compared to the state rate of 33 percent. • The English Language Arts Achievement rate was 23.8 percent compared to 32.8 percent for the state. • The science achievement rate…

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EXCLUSIVE:  Rep. Sheila Butt:  Bill Focuses On The Success of Our Students

Rep. Sheila Butt (R-Columbia) told The Tennessee Star in an exclusive interview on Capitol Hill that HB 617, a bill she has sponsored in the current session of the Tennessee General Assembly, will improve options for high school testing in math and English language arts. “HB 617 is a bill which would allow local school districts to have the option of using the ACT or the SAT suite of testing in lieu of the end of course test, the TNReady test and the TCAP test, in the State of Tennessee,” Butt told The Star’s Laura Baigert. “This is a bill that focuses on the success of our students and this is a tried and true measurement of college readiness and college success.  And all of our districts should have the option of being able to use these tests for their students,” she added. “Local Education Agencies – As introduced, authorizes LEAs to use the ACT, ACT Aspire, or SAT suites of standardized assessments instead of the TCAP, TNReady, and end-of-course exams to test the subjects of math and English language arts for grades nine through 12,” the Tennessee General Assembly website says of HB 617 (introduced in the Senate as SB…

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