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Despite Controversial Law, Few Failing Students Held Back

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Some 60 percent of Tennessee third-grade students scored below proficiency in English language arts on 2024 state tests. Fewer than than 1 percent of them were retained under the state’s reading and retention law, and about 2.5 percent are no longer enrolled in public schools, according to new data.

Among fourth graders who had been promoted by receiving tutoring during the 2023-24 academic year under the same law, just over 1 percent were held back this school year, while at least 4 percent have left their public school.

The findings, presented by Tennessee’s chief academic officer to the State Board of Education on Thursday, show some of the effects of Tennessee’s 2021 reading intervention and retention law aimed at accelerating learning after the pandemic.

The controversial statute was pushed by Gov. Bill Lee, who said he wanted to draw a hard line to “stop the cycle of passing without preparation.” The legislature has since approved several revisions to loosen the policies and provide more pathways to promotion for students who don’t test as proficient readers.

State leaders are ‘encouraged’ by tutoring and summer program data

The big question is whether students are becoming better readers with the state’s interventions.

That includes summer programming, which began in each school system in 2021 to mitigate the effects of disruptions to schooling during the pandemic. About 121,000 students went that first year, and participation has leveled off to about 90,000 in subsequent years.

Chief Academic Officer Kristy Brown, in her presentation to the board, said attendance rates improved for recent summer programs, indicating that parents are finding value in them.

As far as academics, she said: “What we’re really seeing is the effects of decreased summer slide, or the lack of it, for students who are participating, compared to those who are not.”

Summer slide, referring to when students’ academic proficiency regresses during summer break, is a common phenomenon, especially for historically disadvantaged populations.

As for required small group tutoring, which younger students receive weekly during the school year if they don’t meet expectations on state tests, Brown said students testing in the bottom level, called “below” proficiency, are moving in the right direction.

In addition, almost half of the 12,260 fourth graders who received required tutoring in 2023-24 showed improvement as the year progressed. Over 14 percent of them scored as proficient on their TCAPs last spring, and nearly 33 percent met the threshold for showing adequate growth based on a state formula.

The data is the first available for fourth-graders who started receiving additional support after scoring below proficiency in the third grade.

“To finally have the numbers — to see that the needle appears to have been moved in a positive way like that — I was glad to see,” said Ryan Holt, a member of the state board.

Several other board members also said they were “encouraged” by the data.

Brown, the state’s academic chief, cautioned that gains can’t be traced at this point to any single part of the state’s reading interventions.

“It’s a combination of the things that we’ve done,” she said, “with professional learning for teachers, and summer programming, and tutoring, and those things customized for those students to see the gains that I think we’ve seen in Tennessee.”

Many educators and parents have been less enthusiastic.

The high-stakes testing was well-intended, they say, but it’s taken an emotional toll on many of Tennessee’s youngest students, affecting their self-confidence and their feelings toward school.

The legislature’s most recent revisions to the law were intended to give parents and educators more input into retention decisions.

Many students facing retention used alternative pathways to promotion

After the 2023-24 school year, most of the nearly 44,000 third graders who were at risk of retention used other pathways to promotion.

Nearly 27 percent were exempted for various reasons, including having a disability or suspected disability that impacts their reading; being an English language learner with less than two years of ELA instruction; and having been previously retained.

Over 4 percent retook the test at the end of the academic year and scored as proficient.

Others were promoted through a combination of tutoring and summer program participation.

For the 12,260 fourth graders who participated in tutoring last school year, over 14 percent scored as proficient on the state’s assessment in the spring.

Over 32 percent met the state’s “adequate growth” measure that’s tailored to each student. It’s based on testing measurements that the state uses to predict the probability that a student can become proficient by the eighth grade, when they take their last TCAP tests.

And nearly 44 percent of at-risk fourth graders were promoted by a new “conference” pathway that lawmakers approved on the last day of the 2024 legislative session. It allows the student to be promoted if their parents, teacher, and principal decide collectively that it’s in the child’s best interest.

Any fourth grader promoted to the fifth grade via the conference pathway must receive tutoring in the fifth grade.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

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School Voucher Bills to Be First Filed Ahead of Next Legislative Session

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, flanked by Republican legislative leaders, speaks with reporters after the 2024 General Assembly adjourned on April 25 in Nashville. The defeat of Lee's universal voucher proposal was a major setback for his administration. (Courtesy of State of Tennessee)

A new universal school-voucher proposal will be the first bill filed for Tennessee’s upcoming legislative session, signaling that Gov. Bill Lee intends to make the plan his number-one education priority for a second straight year.

Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) said last week that he’ll file his chamber’s legislation on the morning of Nov. 6, the day after Election Day. He expects House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland) will do the same.

The big question is whether House and Senate Republican leaders will be able to agree on the details in 2025. The 114th Tennessee General Assembly convenes on Jan. 14 as Lee begins his last two years in office.

During the 2024 session, the governor’s Education Freedom Scholarship proposal stalled in finance committees over disagreements about testing and funding, despite a GOP supermajority, and even as universal voucher programs sprang up in several other states.

Sponsors in the Tennessee House, where voucher programs have had a harder time getting support from rural Republicans and urban Democrats, attempted to woo votes with an omnibus-style bill that included benefits for public schools, too. But Senate Republican leaders balked at the scope and cost of the House version.

On Monday, Johnson gave a voucher update to school board members in Williamson County, which he represents, on the development of new legislation.

Similar to last year’s proposal, the new bill would provide about $7,000 in taxpayer funds to each of up to 20,000 students to attend a private school beginning next fall, with half of the slots going to students who are considered economically disadvantaged. By 2026, all of Tennessee’s K-12 students, regardless of family income, would be eligible for vouchers, though the number of recipients would depend on how much money is budgeted for the program.

“The bill is not finalized, but we’re all working together with the governor’s office to come up with a bill we all can support,” Johnson told Chalkbeat after the presentation.

Testing accountability is among chief issues to settle.

Johnson said the Senate’s 2025 bill will again include some type of testing requirement for voucher recipients — either state assessments or state-approved national tests — to gauge whether the program is improving academic outcomes.

However, the Senate bill would eliminate a previous provision that might have allowed public school students to enroll in any district, even if they’re not zoned for it. That policy proposal had been included at the insistence of Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol), who lost his reelection bid in the August primary.

Lamberth, the House leader, did not respond this week to multiple requests for comment about his chamber’s plan, which in 2024 had no testing requirement for voucher recipients. Instead, the House version sought to dramatically reduce testing and accountability for public school students, including replacing high school end-of-course assessments with ACT college entrance exams.

The House bill also included numerous financial incentives to try to garner support from public school advocates. One idea was to increase the state’s contribution to pay for public school teachers’ medical insurance by redirecting $125 million the governor had earmarked for teacher salary increases.

Johnson told school board members the governor is planning a “substantial” increase for public education funding in 2025 but didn’t specify how much or for what.

“I think we’re going to have some things in there that will be great for all public education,” he said when asked later about including costly incentives such as teacher medical insurance funding. “Whether it’s in that (voucher) bill or if it’s in a separate bill is a great question. We will see. I don’t know the answer.”

Williamson County school board rescinds earlier anti-voucher resolution

Johnson told board members in his home district that he expects “nominal” impact to Williamson County’s two suburban school systems south of Nashville, if the bill passes the legislature in 2025. Most enrollees, he said, would be in urban areas that have more low-performing schools and private school options.

Later Monday, Williamson County’s board, including four newly elected members whose campaigns were supported by a conservative out-of-state political action committee, voted 10-2 to rescind a resolution passed by the previous board opposing Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act.

The governor is from Williamson County and graduated from a public high school there in 1977. So it was significant when his local board voted in March to join more than 50 other school boards across Tennessee on record against his signature education proposal.

But Dennis Diggers, a new board member, argued that it was appropriate to revisit the issue given the recent election, and proposed rescinding the resolution.

“Four of the six candidates who won their election ran publicly for more than six months on this issue, so it was out there,” Diggers said. “I am not going to deny the parents in Williamson County the chance to help their kids.”

Meanwhile, a Tennessee policy organization that supports vouchers released a new poll showing 58 percent of the state’s voters are more inclined to support a candidate who supports letting parents collect public funding to choose where their child is educated, including public, private, charter, or home schools. The Beacon Center poll did not use the word “vouchers” in its question to voters, which tends to poll worse than language about “school choice.”

Universal vouchers would mark a major expansion of vouchers in Tennessee, where lawmakers voted in 2019 to create education savings account options for students in Memphis and Nashville. That targeted program, which has since expanded to the Chattanooga area, has 3,550 enrollees in its third year, still below the 5,000-student cap, according to data provided by the state education department.

A spokeswoman for the governor said his administration continues to work with both legislative chambers on a “unified” universal voucher bill to kick off discussions for the 2025 session. She also noted that $144 million remains in this year’s state budget for the program, even though lawmakers didn’t approve the bill.

“We remain grateful for the General Assembly’s continued commitment to deliver Education Freedom Scholarships to Tennessee families by keeping funding for last year’s proposal in the budget,” said Elizabeth Johnson, the governor’s press secretary.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

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Report: Tennessee Policies, Not Students, Root of Classroom Discipline Problems

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Tennessee schools are increasingly punishing and excluding special education students with behavioral issues instead of providing them with evidence-based interventions to support their academic and behavioral growth, a new report says.

And it’s not the fault of teachers, school staff, or the students themselves, the author says.

In its report, released Friday, the Tennessee Disability Coalition blamed state policymakers for setting priorities and adopting policies that are ineffective at best, and likely harming thousands of the state’s most vulnerable students.

As a result, the coalition says, educators are using “ineffective, dangerous, counter-productive, and rights-violating practices” in the classroom.

The criticisms come after Tennessee enacted a string of increasingly stringent laws aimed at tightening discipline in the classroom — from the 2021 Teacher’s Discipline Act empowering teachers to remove chronically unruly students to a 2024 law requiring a one-year suspension for students who assault teachers at school.

Such policies, the report says, disproportionately affect students with disabilities, particularly those with behavioral issues, thereby restricting their educational opportunities.

“These policies not only sweep students with behavior needs into more restrictive settings, alternative school placements, and the juvenile justice system, they cast a net over other marginalized communities, including students of color and students in poverty,” the report says.

Jeff Strand, the coalition’s public policy director, said recent Tennessee laws also show a lack of understanding about special-needs students with behavioral challenges, leading to policies that are poorly suited to address the root causes of disciplinary issues.

“Good teachers know behavior issues are a child’s cry for help,” said Strand, a former special educator who authored the report. “What we’re doing in Tennessee is only making the problem worse.”

Specifically, the report calls out a shortage and high turnover of special education teachers; systemic gaps in training and support for special and general education teachers and administrators on the needs of students with behavior issues; a trend toward punitive and exclusionary practices; and a lack of student access to effective school-based supports and therapies, including enough school psychologists, counselors, speech-language pathologists, and board-certified behavior analysts.

Families: teachers are under-trained and overwhelmed

Chris and Angela Powell’s family has experienced gaps in school services firsthand as parents of a child with autism and ADHD.

They describe their son Charlie as intelligent, caring, and kind. But his behaviors — whether shouting out answers, failing to complete worksheets, or fighting — often resulted in lost recess, hours in the principal’s office, or even being physically restrained or placed in a padded room during his first few years of elementary school in Williamson County, south of Nashville.

“These are invisible disabilities, and his behavior was his form of communicating. But he was being excluded and punished based on his disability,” said Angela Powell, now a special-needs advocate. “His general education teachers didn’t seem to understand how to work with children who have needs like ADHD or autism.”

The Powells say Williamson County’s two school districts lacked qualified therapists and other specialized support staff, leaving teachers with few tools to tackle classroom misbehavior. Charlie eventually was placed on homebound instruction, receiving his lessons in a home setting and missing out on the opportunity to attend school with his non-disabled peers. Now 12, he is being homeschooled.

“If the richest district in Tennessee can’t help my son learn,” said Chris Powell, “I shudder to think what families deal with in the other 94 counties.”

Meanwhile, the report identified only three of the state’s 10 largest teacher training programs — at the University of Memphis, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, and University of Tennessee-Chattanooga — as offering more than two courses on teaching students with disabilities.

Also, while the state recently switched to a new K-12 education funding formula to provide more resources for students with higher needs, such as students with disabilities, the change did not require that districts designate such extra funds for special education services.

And while the state promised to inject an extra $1 billion annually in the K-12 funding pool, Tennessee remains in the bottom fifth of states in per-pupil funding.

Exclusion policies gave way to inclusion movement

Tennessee was once one of the many states that had laws formally excluding children with disabilities from public schools, on the premise that those kids would not benefit from a public school education. Before the passage of a 1975 federal law establishing the right to a public education for kids with disabilities, only 1 in 5 of those children were educated in public schools.

The expanded Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990 marked the advent of the inclusion movement and the belief that children with disabilities, with some individualized support, can thrive in educational settings with their non-disabled peers.

But despite clear research on the benefits of inclusion for students with disabilities, surveys show general education teachers feel ill-prepared to work with them and struggle especially with special needs students with behavioral issues.

In Tennessee, about a tenth of the state’s public school students use an individualized education plan, or IEP, intended to ensure that the student receives specialized instruction and related services for their disability.

But according to data from the state education department, those same students receive a disproportionate share of formal disciplinary actions that include in-school and out-of-school suspension, expulsion, and transfer to alternative settings. In 2021-22, the most recent school year for which data are available, 12.5% of students with disabilities were removed from their classrooms, even though federal law limits excessive exclusionary discipline.

In addition, informal exclusionary disciplinary practices — which are difficult to quantify — are almost exclusively directed toward students with disabilities, the coalition says. They can include directing parents or guardians to take the student home for the day, inappropriate homebound placement, excessive use of threat assessments, inappropriate use of in-school suspension, and exclusion from school transportation.

Pending review of the report, a spokesperson for the state education department declined to comment on its assertions.

The leader of Professional Educators of Tennessee, which lobbied for the Teacher’s Discipline Act, acknowledged the challenges and nuances of disciplining students, especially those with special needs.

“We have seen since the pandemic an increase in mental health issues. That is why we at Professional Educators of Tennessee have worked hard to get additional funding for mental health in Tennessee,” said executive director JC Bowman.

He added that he’s open to new ideas that “ensure classrooms are safe and orderly, and every child has an opportunity to learn.”

The state comptroller is looking into the “informal removal” issue, also called “off-book suspensions.” Its Office of Research and Education Accountability has commissioned a report, which is expected to be released later this year, to better understand the use of informal removal, which often violates the rights of students with an IEP.

Strand says both pathways — formal and informal — can allow schools to avoid developing effective plans to correct bad behavior so they can stay in class and learn.

He recommends that Tennessee parents learn as much as they can about the rights of children with disabilities, including those with behavioral issues.

The coalition is hosting a free webinar at 5:30 p.m. Central time on Tuesday, June 25, on Facebook.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

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A Court Order Forced Fayette County Schools to Integrate. Will Progress Continue Without It?

Myles Wilson stands outside Somerville Elementary School on Thurs., May 16, 2024 in Fayette County, Tennessee. The school, which was predominantly white, was closed in 2014 to comply with a 1965 desegregation order. (Tonyaa Weathersbee / Chalkbeat)

As in many school districts across the South, where segregation was once the law, it took protests and a court order to desegregate public schools in Fayette County, Tennessee.

That order came nearly a dozen years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which declared legally mandated racial segregation in schools unconstitutional.

Fayette County, a place where new homes are sprouting like spring grass in towns on its outskirts, is still operating under the 1965 order. The order has led to racially integrated schools, with Black and white students proportionally represented in most of the four elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school. Growing numbers of Hispanic students are also enrolling, and the current superintendent, Versie Ray Hamlett, is Black.

That’s a vast change from what 78-year-old Myles Wilson, a former Fayette County school superintendent and now a school board member, faced in 1963, when he was reading hand-me-down books at all-Black Fayette County Training School.

“The textbooks were terrible,” Wilson recalled. “Sometimes, entire pages would be destroyed. I guess they were tearing pages out because they knew they would be passed down to us.”

But, Wilson added, “We’ve made some great strides. We’ve had seven Black superintendents since 1984.”

Yet Wilson said he and other members of the community are worried that progress, so hard won, could erode once a new consent decree that the Justice Department issued in 2023 is satisfied – and the 1965 court order is lifted.

“A lot of Blacks feel like we shouldn’t be released from the consent decree, because they’ll go back to the old way, because that’s what’s happened in the rest of the country,” he said.

Many school districts across the country still have racially segregated schools, and school segregation has increased in the last three decades.

Sean Reardon, a professor of poverty and inequality in education at Stanford University and Ann Owens, a University of Southern California sociologist, released a study this month showing how an increase in school segregation has been driven by two factors: school districts being released from court oversight and an expansion in school choice policies, particularly the spread of charter schools.

That follows what Reardon and researchers at Stanford found in a 2012 study. According to their analysis, school districts released from desegregation orders in the two decades after 1990 began to resegregate. Ones that continued to be under judicial oversight did not.

“These results suggest that court-ordered desegregation plans are effective in reducing racial school segregation, but that their effects fade over time in the absence of continued court oversight,” the abstract said.

Fayette County’s long fight for civil rights

In Fayette County, the original court order to desegregate the schools was part of a protracted battle for civil rights, one that the New York Times described in 1969 as the “longest sustained civil rights protest in the nation.”

It began in 1959, when John McFerren and Harpman Jameson, both farmers and World War II veterans, attended the trial of Burton Dodson, a Black man who was accused of murder and had escaped a lynch mob.

McFerren and Jameson learned that because few Blacks were registered to vote, it would be impossible for Dodson to get a jury that wasn’t all-white. At the urging of Dodson’s lawyer, James Estes, McFerren and Jameson began to register Black sharecroppers to vote – a move that resulted in many of them being evicted by their white landlords.

Evicted families pitched tents on the outskirts of Somerville, the Fayette County seat, and activists from around the nation joined them.

The tent city disbanded in 1962 after the Justice Department sued the landowners, and the courts ordered them to stop interfering in the rights of Black people to vote or run for office. But the fight for racial justice was far from over – as Wilson would learn.

After graduating from Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee, in 1967, Wilson was hired as a teacher at Fayette County Training School, arriving two years after the court order. He later sued the school system when he and all the single, Black male teachers were fired to prevent them from teaching white girls, he said.

The teachers were reinstated, and Wilson would file other lawsuits over the years to fight racial injustice in the system.

With his own battles for racial justice and desegregation behind him, Wilson fears that without the court order, Fayette County could backslide.

While the school district has satisfied many of the requirements of the court order, the new consent decree requires, among other things, that school officials work with the Justice Department and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to “develop an effective and sustainable student assignment policy to further desegregation in its schools.”

More white families are moving from Memphis to Oakland, a town in Fayette County, and demands are growing for a new high school there – even though the county’s only high school, Fayette-Ware High School, is under capacity, he said.

The school can accommodate 1,300 students, Wilson said, but currently enrolls about 833. Of those, 61% are Black, and 30% are white. He fears that the addition of a new high school could drive segregation.

Wilson also fears that the recent push for universal vouchers by Republican lawmakers – a battle that Gov. Bill Lee has vowed to revive next year – could also erode desegregation progress in Fayette County by giving families public dollars to enroll children in private schools.

One private school in the county, Fayette Academy, was established as an all-white school in 1965, as the desegregation order was handed down. In 1971, U.S. District Judge Robert McRae, whose orders led to school desegregation in Memphis and later upheld busing, called the school “a beautiful building sitting on top of a hill as a monument against the black people.”

The private Christian school remains predominantly white.

Daphene McFerren, daughter of John McFerren and whose brother John McFerren Jr. was one of the original plaintiffs in the desegregation lawsuit, said that if the order is lifted, it doesn’t have to mean the end of progress.

“I don’t want to speculate on where this can end up, because who knows?” said McFerren, who is the executive director of the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis.

But, McFerren said, the fact that the school district is abiding by the consent decree means they are cooperating.

“That should be acknowledged,” she said. “But we should be vigilant in that the goal of this is to eradicate any form of discrimination where it exists in the education of our children.”

McFerren, however, described it as a “Catch-22″ situation. Satisfying the consent decree should mean that the district has met its desegregation goals. But will the district continue to maintain those goals once the mechanism forcing it to do so is gone?

“Well, as I always say, a case can always be reopened,” McFerren said.

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Reach her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

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Bill Allowing Armed Teachers Headed to Governor’s Desk

Protesters stage a "die-in" on the rotunda floor outside of the House chamber at the Tennessee State Capitol on April 23, 2024, after lawmakers passed a bill to let certain teachers and school staff carry handguns in schools. (Photo: Marta W. Aldrich / Chalkbeat)

Protesters screamed “blood on your hands!”, then lay down on the floor of the Tennessee State Capitol as if they were victims of gun violence, after lawmakers passed legislation Tuesday to let some teachers and staff carry guns at school.

In between, House Speaker Cameron Sexton paused business in the House of Representatives and ordered state troopers to clear the spectator gallery of protesters.

The 68-28 vote came one year after an intruder shot and killed three children and three adults at a Nashville school, prompting mass protests by gun control advocates and ongoing calls for tighter gun laws.

But instead of restricting gun access in one of America’s most gun-friendly states, the GOP-controlled legislature is sending Republican Gov. Bill Lee a bill that would expand it.

Gun control advocates were angry.

“They’re going in the wrong direction,” said Marley Mello, a 15-year-old Nashville student. “Guns are the problem, not the solution.”

Lisa Bruce, a retired Tennessee principal, called it a “Band-Aid to cover a gaping wound.”

“I could maybe get on board with it if we were already doing common sense measures to reduce gun violence in our state,” she said. “But this feels like a huge leap.”

The bill’s Republican sponsors have said the legislation is needed to provide an armed presence on every Tennessee school campus, especially in rural areas. Nearly a third of the state’s 1,800-plus public schools don’t have a school resource officer, despite an influx of state money to pay for them, due to a shortage in the profession.

On the House floor, Rep. Ryan Williams, of Cookeville, emphasized that carrying a gun would be voluntary and allowed only if the local school district and law enforcement agencies agree to the policy. The school employee carrying the gun would have to have an enhanced permit, complete 40 hours of certified training in school policing at their own expense, and pass a mental health evaluation and FBI background check.

Republican lawmakers voting for the measure liked that local officials ultimately could decide whether the policy works for their community.

“I trust my local law enforcement. I trust my director of schools. I trust my teacher,” said Rep. Brock Martin, of Huntingdon.

But Democrats said the effort was misguided, shortsighted, and dangerous.

“We’re going to give somebody a little pop gun to go against a weapon of war. It does not work, folks,” said Rep. Bo Mitchell, of Nashville.

Tennesseans would be better served, Democrats argued, if the legislature passed laws requiring safe storage of firearms and background checks, as well as to temporarily remove guns from any person who is an imminent risk to themselves or others — all proposals that have been defeated by Republicans in charge.

The vote came after an hour of debate in which Democrats tried unsuccessfully to change the bill to exclude their counties, ensure parents are notified when their child’s teacher is armed, or remove a clause that shields districts and law enforcement agencies from civil lawsuits over how a school employee uses, or doesn’t use, a gun.

On Monday, one parent at Nashville’s Covenant School, where the shooting occurred on March 27, 2023, delivered a petition signed by more than 5,000 Tennesseans asking lawmakers to vote the bill down.

“While we all want safe schools and an end to gun violence, arming teachers with guns is not the way,” wrote Sarah Shoop Neumann, whose 5-year-old son was enrolled in Covenant’s preschool.

Another Covenant parent, Mary Joyce, called the bill “ludicrous.”

“Had my daughter’s teacher left the classroom to pursue the shooter, a classroom of 9-year-olds would have been left to protect themselves,” Joyce said.

Jeff Bledsoe, the executive director of the Tennessee Sheriffs’ Association, told Chalkbeat he expects few teachers to carry a gun if the bill becomes law. More likely candidates, he said, are school staff members who have a military or law enforcement background.

His organization opposed the legislation in 2019 when Williams sponsored a similar bill. However, it is neutral on the current bill after working with the sponsors to add more requirements before a person can carry a weapon at school.

Two weeks earlier, the bill easily cleared the Senate, where spectators also were ejected from the gallery after defying warnings from Lt. Gov. Randy McNally to stay quiet.

The governor has signaled he likely will sign the measure into law.

“I’ve said for many years that I’m open to the idea, but the particulars are important,” he told reporters last week.

An advocate for parental rights, the governor declined to comment on the bill’s intent to block a parent from being notified if their child’s teacher is carrying a gun.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

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School Voucher Plan Stalls as Legislature Enters Final Weeks

Gov. Bill Lee speaks Thursday with reporters at the state Capitol about the chances of his statewide school voucher proposal passing this year in the legislature. The General Assembly is expected to wind up its business during April. (Marta W. Aldrich / Chalkbeat)

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s push to create a statewide school voucher system is running out of time as Republican lawmakers work to reconcile significantly different proposals and iron out disagreements over student testing requirements.

After sailing through education committees and building early momentum, the bill has stalled for three weeks in finance committees — without public discussion.

GOP leaders hope to complete the 2024 session by April 26. That leaves two weeks to approve a state budget, decide on dozens more bills, and seek consensus on one of the biggest education proposals of Lee’s administration.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol) and House K-12 Subcommittee Chairman Kirk Haston (R-Lobelville) have been key players during weeks of private negotiations.

“We’re still working on it,” Lundberg said Thursday as he emerged from the Senate chamber. He declined to take questions from reporters.

“We’re still working on it.”

Sen. Jon Lundberg (R-Bristol)

Privately, several Republican lawmakers have told Chalkbeat the governor’s statewide voucher plan is sputtering and may not have the votes needed to pass in their respective chambers, especially if negotiators tinker too much with the original proposals.

But publicly, the governor and GOP leadership sound hopeful.

“It feels like they’re close,” Lee told reporters after the legislature recessed for the week. “I’m very encouraged.”

Asked about sticking points, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) said the Senate wants to make sure voucher recipients take some type of annual state-approved test that can be used to compare and rank students in order to gauge the program’s academic effectiveness. The House version has no state testing requirements for students who accept vouchers.

House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) said his chamber is “adamant” that any school choice-related package includes a provision to reduce student testing in public schools. He also indicated that the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, an education research and advocacy group known as SCORE and founded by former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist (R-Nashville), is being consulted as negotiations progress.

“We’ve had a lot of conversations this week,” Sexton said about talks between the House and Senate. “So we’re hopeful we can get there.”

Lee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Act, projected to cost $144 million in its first year, would provide taxpayer funding to up to 20,000 K-12 students to pay toward private school tuition. The governor has set aside that amount for the program in his proposed budget.

The Senate’s version also would allow public school students to enroll in any district, even if they’re not zoned for it, provided there’s enough space and teaching staff.

The House’s larger and more expensive version includes a long list of enticements aimed at public school supporters, including reducing testing time for students, increasing the state’s contribution toward health insurance costs for teachers, requiring fewer evaluations for high-performing teachers, and giving districts extra money to help with their building costs.

Democrats in the legislature oppose school vouchers, even while supporting many of the public school provisions in the House bill.

Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) said he’s glad to see the bill’s progress slow, but added that Democrats are staying vigilant as the two-year session moves toward adjournment.

“Deals get cut late at night,” said the Nashville lawmaker. “I would encourage citizens of Tennessee who truly value public schools to sleep with one eye open.”

“I would encourage citizens of Tennessee who truly value public schools to sleep with one eye open.”

Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville)

Meanwhile, lawmakers are anxious to head home during an election year. All 99 seats in the House and half of the Senate’s 33 seats are on the ballot this year. Until the session ends, incumbents can’t begin accepting campaign contributions. And Republican members in both chambers don’t appear interested in taking a stance on the controversial voucher bill during an election year if the measure is unlikely to succeed.

More private talks by Republican leadership are planned for the weekend.

The bill is scheduled to be taken up Monday by the Senate Finance Committee and Tuesday by the House Finance Subcommittee. McNally, the Senate’s leader, said the outcomes there will signal the proposal’s chances.

“One of the keys will be as it moves through the finance committee in both houses,” McNally said. “I think if you see that, you probably know that things are going fairly well.”

You can track the legislation on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

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Advocates: Too Many In Juvenile Detention Aren’t Going to School

Credit: Shelby County Sheriff's Office

Shelby County officials are coming under fresh pressure to deal with education deficiencies in the juvenile-justice system, where advocates say not enough young people who are detained are regularly attending school or learning what they need to graduate.

A group of those advocates sent a letter this week to Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner, warning about the low rates of school attendance, and demanding improved conditions for youth in detention, beyond just their education.

The county’s Juvenile Court has known about the issues at the county’s Youth Justice and Education Center, and at the school inside, called Hope Academy. A consultant it worked with to identify issues facing youth in the facilities reported that just half of them were attending school each day, and that course offerings weren’t comprehensive enough to give students the classes they need to graduate, according to Stephanie Hill, the court’s chief administrative officer.

The findings were also shared with the Countywide Juvenile Justice Consortium last fall.

But the problems raised by the consultants, from BreakFree Education, can’t easily be solved without collaboration between the sheriff’s office, which oversees the detention center, and Memphis-Shelby County Schools, which operates the school.

Youth crime has been at the center of public discussion in Memphis and across Tennessee. Arrests of young people are down over the past decade, but more of them involve gun-related crimes that draw added law enforcement attention.

Meanwhile, detention facilities in Tennessee have faced intense scrutiny for failing to provide appropriate care to young people. In detention centers like Shelby County’s, where detainees have not yet been tried, missed school days put students who are already facing challenges outside of class at a greater disadvantage for long-term success.

Cardell Orrin, who leads Stand for Children Tennessee, one of the organizations that signed the letter, said part of the issue with improving youth attendance at school is knowing which agency to approach.

“Whose responsibility is it, and then how are they held accountable?” Orrin told Chalkbeat.

In a reply to the organizations, Juvenile Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon said that staffing issues at the facility have contributed to low school attendance rates of 50 percent to 60 percent, much lower than the court’s goal of 90 percent.

Bonner wrote in his own response that the 110 youth currently there were “far more than we had ever expected or planned for.” Instead, he said, 40 to 60 youth were expected to be in the facility.

Sugarmon called that “erroneous,” pointing out that the facility was newly built to accommodate some 140 youth. “It appears there are no physical facilities limits to school attendance,” he wrote.

The young people detained at the center are awaiting trial, and the number of students can vary day-to-day as trials progress.

Memphis-Shelby County Schools told Chalkbeat that it plans to keep working with the court and sheriff’s office to address concerns about Hope Academy. Marie Feagins, who took over as MSCS superintendent on Monday, toured the school last week, and said in a video interview that leaders should consider strengthening rehabilitative programs and expanding opportunities within the facility.

“When I think about education and the power thereof, it’s important to make sure that education, a quality education and experience, to the degree possible, is happening in all of our spaces and places,” she said, pledging to return often to speak with Hope Academy students.

Beyond the education issues, the advocacy groups said they wanted the sheriff to address complaints that youth aren’t allowed outdoors, and parents are being denied in-person visits with their children in detention.

They also said efforts to collect research that would improve programming for youth have been stymied by the sheriff’s office.

Shirley Bondon, the executive director of the Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis, is hoping to conduct research with the youth at the facility to help improve their access to effective diversion programs, as an alternative to detention, and also get a better understanding of what youth need.

“Part of that research requires me to talk to youth in detention and have them complete a survey and get their perspective about why crime occurs, and what resources they need to keep them out of trouble,” Bondon told Chalkbeat.

“We need to scale those programs, and those programs need more funding,” she added. “We also found that the programs often aren’t evidence-based and don’t collect the correct data.”

Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

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Bill: Teachers Could Go Armed and Parents Couldn’t Know

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Legislation to let some public school teachers carry handguns advanced Tuesday in the Tennessee Senate as the Republican-controlled legislature quashed new attempts to tighten the state’s lax firearm laws following last year’s mass school shooting in Nashville.

The bill, which still faces votes before the full Senate and House, would let a teacher or staff member carry a concealed handgun at school after completing 40 hours of certified training in school policing at their own expense, as well as passing a mental health evaluation and FBI background check.

The local district and law enforcement agency would decide whether to let faculty or staff carry a gun under the bill co-sponsored by Sen. Paul Bailey of Sparta and Rep. Ryan Williams of Cookeville, both Republicans.

But parents would not be notified if their student’s teacher is armed, which runs counter to the GOP’s emphasis on parental rights and notification on education matters such as curriculum and library materials.

“The director of schools, principal, and the chief of the local law enforcement agency are the only ones notified of those permitted to carry,” Bailey told senators, “and they are not to disclose if someone is or is not permitted to carry on school grounds.”

The 7-1 vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee comes as Tennessee’s legislature continues to pass measures aimed at fortifying school campuses rather than restricting gun access in one of the most gun-friendly states in America.

Last year, after a shooter killed three children and three adults at a private Christian school in Nashville, the legislature allocated $230 million and passed laws to upgrade school facilities, pay for a school resource officer for every school, and ensure school doors remain locked.

Gov. Bill Lee later called lawmakers back for a special session on public safety. But none of the bills that passed specifically addressed concerns about easy access to guns that were raised by the March 27 shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School, where a 28-year-old intruder, who police said was under a doctor’s care for an “emotional disorder,” used legally purchased guns to shoot through the glass doors.

This year, bills moving through the legislature would require age-appropriate gun safety training for school children as young as kindergarten; change school fire alarm protocols to take into account active-shooter situations; create a pilot program to give teachers wearable alarms; increase safety training for school bus drivers; and set guidelines to digitize school maps so first responders can access school layouts quickly in an emergency, among other things.

Meanwhile, Democratic-sponsored legislation to restrict gun access by broadening background checks and promoting secure firearm storage have met swift defeats. Earlier on Tuesday, one House panel dismissed, without discussion, a bill seeking to ban semi-automatic rifles in Tennessee.

School safety is one of the top three education concerns of Tennessee parents, but significantly fewer parents agree that schools are safer when teachers are armed, according to the latest results in an annual poll from the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy.

Sen. London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat who voted against the measure, said more guns aren’t the solution to stopping gun violence.

“I do not think that it is the responsibility of teachers in our state, who have taken the oath to educate our children, to now become law enforcement officers,” she said.

Lamar also expressed concern about one provision to shield districts and law enforcement agencies from potential civil lawsuits over how a teacher or school employee uses, or fails to use, a handgun under the proposed law.

Organizations representing Tennessee teachers and school superintendents prefer policies that place an officer in every school over any that could arm faculty.

But Bailey told the Senate panel that nearly a third of the state’s 1,800-plus public schools still don’t have a school resource officer, despite an influx of state money to pay for them.

Law enforcement groups have struggled to recruit enough candidates because of inadequate pay, occupational stress, and changing public perceptions about the profession.

“Everybody’s got a shortage right now, but it’s been going on for years,” said Lt. Kyle Cheek, president of the Tennessee School Resource Officers Association.

Cheek, who oversees school-based deputies in Maury County, said equipping a teacher for school policing would require extensive training beyond a basic firearms course. And it would raise other concerns too.

“Who takes care of the teacher’s class if they’re going to check out a security issue?” he told Chalkbeat. “It’s a huge responsibility.”

The advancement of Bailey’s Senate bill means the measure likely will face votes this month in the full Senate and House before the legislature adjourns its two-year session.

The House version cleared numerous committees last year, but Williams did not pursue a vote by the full chamber after the Covenant tragedy prompted gun control advocates to stage mass protests at the Capitol.

You can track the legislation on the General Assembly’s website.

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

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Six Big Storylines That Defined Tennessee Education In 2023

Rep. Justin Pearson raises his newly signed oath of office after being reinstated to the Tennessee General Assembly on April 13, 2023, days after the Republican-controlled legislature ousted him and another Democratic lawmaker over the way they protested the state’s lax gun laws. (Marta W. Aldrich / Chalkbeat)

For a third straight year, many Tennessee students strived to climb back from academic and mental health challenges after COVID-19 forced them into remote learning.

But it was the unexpected events that dominated education news in Tennessee in 2023 and exposed new fault lines: A deadly shooting at a Nashville private school sparked protests and a backlash at the state Capitol. A superintendent search in the state’s largest school district unraveled just as it was about to wrap up. And the state ordered an 11th-hour overhaul of school accountability measures that will fall hardest on schools that serve students from low-income families.

Beyond that, some of the biggest headlines were about the ripple effects of Tennessee laws that put new pressure on public schools, including the rapid spread of private-school vouchers, the anxiety around high-stakes testing for third graders, and restrictions on what teachers can say in their classrooms about race and bias.

Chalkbeat Tennessee’s Marta W. Aldrich, our senior correspondent in Nashville, and Laura Testino, our Memphis-Shelby County Schools reporter, covered all those issues like honeysuckle covers the South. They connected with experts and advocates, sought out documents and data, and, most of all, showcased the voices of students, parents, and educators to bring you closer to the big stories driving education in the Volunteer State.

Here are some of the 2023 stories that resonated most with you — and with us.

Nashville students protest the state’s lax gun laws

On March 27, an intruder armed with legally obtained, high-powered guns entered The Covenant School in Nashville and killed three adults and three 9-year-olds. The school was private, but the impact quickly spread to the public sphere when thousands of students and educators responded with days of protests against the state’s lax gun laws.

A story by Marta about the students protesting at the state Capitol in Nashville was the most-read story of 2023.

Among other things, it called attention to the disconnect between public support for tighter gun safety laws and a legislature that has moved in the other direction, eliminating many requirements for permits, safety training and waiting periods, and allowing purchases of some of the most deadly weapons.

Marta’s coverage that day showcased the voices — and faces — of the students who are coming of age in an era of escalating gun violence and turning their anger and anxiety into activism.

“We all want to live through high school,” said a 17-year-old student Marta spoke with, “and that’s why we’re here today.”

In her continuing coverage, Marta focused on how Tennessee lawmakers continued to push for broader access to guns, even as Nashville teachers were struggling to cope mentally and emotionally with the aftermath of the Covenant shooting.

A special legislative session on gun safety yielded no new restrictions, angering parents, students, and gun control activists.

“Today is a difficult day,” said David Teague, a father of two children at Covenant. “A tremendous opportunity to make our children safer and create brighter tomorrow’s has been missed. And I am saddened for all Tennesseans.”

Lawmaker expulsions: When a teachable moment becomes taboo

The gun safety protests roiled the state Capitol, culminating in the expulsion of two lawmakers who led the protests on the House floor. They also created confusion in Tennessee classrooms about how to discuss what happened.

In all, three Democratic lawmakers faced expulsion resolutions over their role in the protests, but only two of them — Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis, both young Black men — were actually voted out by the GOP-dominated chamber. The House spared the third lawmaker, Gloria Johnson of Knoxville, who is a white woman.

The incident drew national attention, and scorn, as an example of racism and white privilege in the halls of power. But because of a state law that restricts teaching about race, many teachers struggled with how to answer students’ questions or engage them in conversations about it. While tracking the expulsion story, Marta and Laura also explored what happens when state policies collide with learning and engagement in the classroom, and what students lose when they do.

“I think these conversations would go much deeper if our teachers didn’t have the fear of these new laws hanging over them,” one high school senior in Nashville told them.

The same themes resurfaced in Laura’s coverage of a book event at Whitehaven H.S. in Memphis, featuring authors of “His Name Is George Floyd.”

Laura discovered a social media exchange that revealed how the authors faced restrictions on presenting their book to students because of concerns about the state laws governing library books and “age appropriate” materials. Tennessee’s laws restricting classroom discussions of race also loomed in the background.

Laura resolved to tell the story of how the restrictions came to be, and how they were communicated to the organizers of the book event and the authors. But the state law is a touchy subject for educators trying to steer clear of trouble, and Laura found it challenging to get the full story from the school district.

According to the authors of the book, journalists Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, students at Whitehaven didn’t get the full story about George Floyd either. Samuels wrote an essay about the experience in The New Yorker.

Memphis superintendent search moves in fits and starts

It was just over a year ago that Memphis-Shelby County Schools announced an accelerated process for selecting a permanent successor to Joris Ray, who resigned in August 2022 amid charges that he abused his power and violated district policies.

But the superintendent post is still vacant, and the search continues.

What was supposed to be a grand unveiling of finalists in April devolved into an argument about process when some board members decided they didn’t like the slate of candidates selected by the search firm.

A big sticking point was the selection of the interim superintendent, Toni Williams, as a finalist. She had once pledged not to apply for the permanent post. And Chalkbeat Tennessee reported that the search firm, Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, didn’t enforce board policies on minimum qualifications for the job in screening candidates.

Chalkbeat Tennessee has closely tracked the ensuing drama, including the resignation of the board’s vice chair, the banning of several activists from district property, and big questions about whether the public display of board dysfunction would repel top national candidates.

A rebooted search is now reaching its final stages, with a target of having the next superintendent on the job by summer. Whoever emerges as the leader will have a heavy workload: navigating tough budget decisions, coordinating a massive facilities overhaul, and driving academic recovery in a district where nearly 80% of students aren’t proficient in reading.

Accountability measures add to pressure on districts — and children

In a sign of continuing recovery from the pandemic, students’ proficiency rates in math and language arts improved in most districts across the state, according to results from the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP test. The gains in Memphis-Shelby County schools were more muted than in past years.

Along with Thomas Wilburn, Chalkbeat’s senior data editor, Marta provided a comprehensive report on the results and a data tool to help readers look up how students in each district performed.

Beyond the scores, Chalkbeat’s coverage zeroed in on last year’s class of third-graders, and the outsized burden they carried. These students were kindergartners when the pandemic struck in March 2020, sent home to learn remotely just as their formal education was beginning.

Statewide, this was also the first cohort of third-graders who faced the threat of being held back if they couldn’t demonstrate proficiency on the TCAP language arts test. Statewide, about 60% of third-graders did not meet the standard for proficiency. In MSCS alone, more than 6,000 students missed the mark.

Laura focused on one of them: 8-year-old Kamryn, an anxious third-grader who chose to walk out of her school rather than face the results of a state test that could cause her to remain in the third grade.

“She told me that she was tired of school,” her mother told Laura.

Kamryn’s tale reflected the human toll of testing and accountability measures in a school district where children were, long before the disruption of COVID-19, already facing many challenges.

School district leaders and administrators now face another set of accountability pressures: the start of a new letter-grading system for all public schools, mandated by a 2016 state law.

They had been waiting for these A-F grades for years, thinking they understood what the criteria would be. But the state education department decided to change the criteria late this year to stress proficiency over growth, mostly ignoring the feedback it received from town halls and public comments. That means more schools in struggling areas are likely to receive D’s or F’s.

The grades are due out Thursday.

Laura and Marta’s coverage adds to the discourse of how Tennessee continues to apply new scrutiny to public schools with no guarantees of helping them to improve.

Tennessee legislature looks at rejecting billions of dollars in federal education funds

To many observers, it seemed like just political posturing when Tennessee House Speaker Cameron Sexton suggested that the state reject billions of dollars in federal education funds so it could free itself from federal regulations.

But Marta knew that such a potentially sweeping idea needed to be treated seriously, because Tennessee receives about $1.8 billion in federal aid — and because no state had ever rejected federal funding before.

She went to work on a Q&A for readers to show what giving up federal funds would mean for families and the state’s most vulnerable students. In particular, Marta noted, without the conditions that come with federal funding, there’s no guarantee that Tennessee law would work as well as federal laws designed to protect students with disabilities.

Sure enough, Sexton was serious enough about his suggestion to order a full-blown legislative study, with hearings featuring testimony from school district leaders and conservative think tanks — but not parents.

The panel considering the idea is still doing its research, but its co-chair says it’s unlikely the state will follow through.

Tennessee governor proposes to make private-school vouchers available to all

One by one, obstacles to Gov. Bill Lee’s private-school voucher program have fallen away.

A program once billed as a pilot project for two counties has expanded to a third under a law passed this year. And Lee now wants to make it universal, available to all students statewide.

Marta’s coverage of the proposal delivered needed context about Lee’s continuing effort to persuade more parents to sign on to the program, which has attracted only about 2,000 students so far, well below capacity.

The story also looks ahead to the obstacles Lee will face in getting his bill through the legislature. Already, leaders of many rural and suburban school districts have announced their opposition to the bill based on the same concern that urban districts have: that it will divert more money away from public schools.

It’s a story that we’ll be following closely when the legislature convenes next month and the full language of the bill becomes available. Stay tuned.

Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee oversees Chalkbeat Tennessee’s education coverage. Reach her at tweathersbee@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

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How Schools’ New A-F Letter Grading System Will Work

Tennessee Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds has unveiled a new calculation for giving A-F letter grades to the state’s 1,700 public schools. The overhaul is her first major initiative since coming to the job in July under Gov. Bill Lee’s administration. Photo courtesy of Tennessee Department of Education

After months of asking Tennesseans how the state should judge its public schools when giving them their first A-F letter grades, Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds mostly ignored the feedback.

In her first major initiative since taking the helm of the state education department in July, Reynolds chose a school grading system that elevates the importance of proficiency — whether students are meeting certain academic standards on state tests — over the progress that schools make toward meeting those standards over the course of a year.

Her plan, unveiled on Thursday, will mark a sharp change of course for Tennessee, considered a pioneer in emphasizing growth measurements to assess its students, teachers, and schools. 

It’s also significantly different from what Tennesseans have asked state officials for since Reynolds announced in August that an overhaul in the state’s grading system was coming. The overwhelming feedback at 10 town halls, meetings with stakeholders, and in nearly 300 public comments was for keeping the calculation focused on growth, as it has been the last five years. 

Reynolds’ plan is similar to the model backed by ExcelinEd, the education advocacy group founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and where Reynolds previously served as policy director. 

It will still include improvement as a factor, as required by a 2016 Tennessee law, but achievement will get more weight than under the original formula — and there won’t be a way for schools to meet the achievement criteria by meeting certain improvement goals, according to a presentation to the state Board of Education.

Chart: Thomas Wilburn  Source: Tennessee Department of Education

“This version is recalibrating that balance point and is going to say more about where the kids are in those schools right now,” said David Laird, assistant commissioner of assessment and accountability in the education department. “It is less of a referendum on maybe what the school’s impact has been, but it’s more clearly articulating their challenges right now.”

The department also announced that the grades will be released in mid-December, a month later than previously planned. State officials say they need more time to verify data going into the grades. 

This is the first time the state will issue its letter grades since the 2016 law requiring them took effect. Previous attempts were called off because of testing glitches and the pandemic.

There are several other changes to the calculation. 

The formula will factor in test scores for science and social studies, although not as much as for math and English language arts, which were the focus of the original model.

Chart: Thomas Wilburn  Source: Tennessee Department of Education

Gone is data related to chronic absenteeism. A new factor will be how well schools are helping their lowest-performing quartile of students to improve. For high schools, college and career readiness will be included, based on measures such as ACT scores, post-secondary credits, or industry credentials.

The debate about growth vs. proficiency was the biggest concern for school leaders who have been waiting and planning for grades for five years.

Focusing on proficiency likely will mean fewer A’s and generally worse grades than expected for many schools, especially those serving students from lower-income families in rural and urban communities. 

Beyond the stigma of getting a D or an F, officials representing those schools eventually may face hearings before the state Board of Education or audits of their spending and academic programming.

Several board members worried that teachers could flee schools graded D or F, exacerbating the challenges faced by schools in high-poverty areas, where students face extra challenges before they even walk into a classroom. 

“It’s a struggle for me to think about saying everyone should pull themselves up by their bootstraps, when some folks have a closet full of boots, and some have none,” said Darrell Cobbins, who represents Memphis on the board.

Many education advocates worried the state could return to an era when schools with many affluent students coasted to the top ratings, while doing little to show they were helping students improve. Meanwhile, schools in high-poverty areas will have little chance to earn an A or B, they told Chalkbeat.

“Measuring only absolute proficiency for 50% of a school’s grade will most certainly disadvantage our highest-poverty schools,” said Erin O’Hara Block, a school board member for Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools, who served on the working group giving input to the state.

“I’m not sure what this system is supposed to motivate for schools, nor how it will truly inform parents on differences in what various schools can offer to their children,” she said.

Reynolds said the letter grades are a tool to provide families and school communities with information they can use to make decisions, not necessarily to incentivize schools to improve.

“We want to tell the truth about whether or not our kids are actually achieving,” she said.

But Gini Pupo-Walker, director of the Education Trust in Tennessee, is hopeful the grades will somehow be tied to extra resources to help struggling schools.

“We look forward to learning more about how the state plans to support schools that receive D’s and F’s,” she said, “and ensure schools are paying attention to the success of all students.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.