The Tennessee Department of Education (TDOE) released final data on third-grade retention appeals this week.
In 2021, Tennessee lawmakers passed the Tennessee Learning Loss Remediation and Student Acceleration Act. It set forth key academic supports for third-grade students who did not score proficient on their Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) assessment’s English language arts (ELA) portion. It further updated requirements for students to move to the next grade via multiple pathways for fourth-grade promotion.
The retention portion of the law, which went into effect this year, allowed parents the option to appeal to the TDOE if their third-grade student failed to reach the required level on the state’s annual standardized test. The window for families to submit an appeal about their student’s potential third-grade retention closed on June 30.
On Wednesday, the department shared that they’ve received 10,572 appeal forms, representing 9,054 unique students during the appeals window. Of these unique students, 7,812 – a little more than 86 percent – received approval on their appeal, and 685 received a denial of their request. An additional 557 appeals did not meet the requirements for consideration.
The appeals process was just one option to avoid retention for families whose students were at risk due to their TCAP performance.
Data released after the initial Spring TCAP showed that roughly 44,000 students did not score proficient statewide 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 provided.
Results from those retakes showed that half of Tennessee’s districts had between 10 percent and 20 percent of their students achieve proficiency through the retest. Additionally, a third had between 10 percent and 20 percent of students improve from “below” proficiency to the next level of “approaching” proficiency. Roughly 3,350 students passed the re-take exam and as a result, will move on to fourth-grade.
Between retakes and appeals processes, just over 11,000 third-graders have avoided retention.
With two weeks remaining before most Tennessee districts reopen schools, the fate of approximately 33,000 at-risk third-grade students remains unclear.
Metro Nashville Public Schools(MNPS) spokesman Sean Braisted told The Tennessee Star, “While we are still validating and reviewing district-level totals for the upcoming school year which should be available next week, individual schools have already identified which students are required to be retained or receive tutoring in the upcoming school year and have been contacting families with that information with a deadline of July 24 to notify them of their student’s status.”
Braisted added, “District Support Hub members will be assisting principals in the coming week to ensure students who require tutoring are able to have them assigned so they can continue with 4th-grade promotion.”
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TC Weber is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. He writes the blog Dad Gone Wild. Follow TC on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected]. He’s the proud parent of two public school children and the spouse of a public school teacher.
A complete sham. The much ballyhooed 3rd grade retention law is a BIG smoke screen. There are so many ways around being retained – as shown by this article – That it is worthless. Parents can appeal on what grounds? Because little Jane’s or Johnny’s feelings would be hurt? What a bunch of baloney. Besides taking summer school or getting tutored gets you a pass even if the reading level does not improve. The kids and Tennessee deserve better than this.
Contact your rep and senator to call them out on this charade. Tell them to put law into effect that actually does something worthwhile.
what a load of BS, so the kids who are “approaching proficiency” are being moved to 4th grade.
IMO, they should have been retained. They will lag behind in 4th grade and drag down their classmates if they can’t keep up. Why bother have a retention law at all, if parents can appeal? What until the next TCAP test and the same students score below proficiency.
Every single third grader could move to fourth grade by simply attending summer school and or having a tutor assigned during fourth grade. This issue received a great deal of ink, little to none having to do with root cause of the failure, our academic/legislative systems and the societal decline in the care of our youth. The new law may not fix what is broken but it certainly gets peoples attention to a problem.