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Educators Cry Foul As Tennessee Revamps Its A-F Grading System

Photo by Ben Mullins on Unsplash

It was supposed to make things simpler.

A 2016 Tennessee law required the state to assign each public school a letter grade, A to F, based mostly on student test results. The intent was to give parents and communities an easy way to assess the quality of education at each school.

Nothing about it has been simple, though. Since the law took effect, the state hasn’t issued any grades, mostly because of testing glitches and the pandemic.

And now there’s a new complication: As the state prepares to finally issue its first grades in November, the education department and its new leader are revamping the grading formula. The changes 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.

The rollout will be a jolt to many Tennessee public school leaders, who have been waiting and planning for these grades for five years, thinking they understood what the criteria would be. And beyond the stigma, the grades could have real consequences: Officials representing schools that get D’s or F’s eventually may face hearings or audits of their spending and academic programming.

“It almost seems like we’re trying to change rules after the game’s already been played,” said Brian Curry, a school board member in Germantown, during an August town hall in Memphis to discuss potential changes with state officials.

At the crux of the state’s late change is a long-running debate over proficiency vs. growth — whether students should be judged based more on whether they meet certain academic standards, or on how much progress they make toward those standards. Where the state lands in that debate is especially important for schools where students face extra challenges even before they walk into a classroom. 

But many public school leaders believe there’s a larger political motive behind the sudden drive by Gov. Bill Lee’s administration to change the rules: advancing his school choice agenda.

Under a 2019 voucher law pushed by Lee, Tennessee now provides taxpayer money to help some families send their children to private schools. But the program has fewer than 2,000 students enrolled in the three counties where it operates, significantly below this year’s 5,000-seat cap. Lee wants to expand enrollment and eventually take the option statewide.

“School choice has got to be part of what’s driving all this,” said Mike Winstead, director of Maryville City Schools and a former Tennessee Superintendent of the Year. 

“Think about it,” he continued. “If you have an A or B school in your community, that may not motivate parents to want to pull their kids out of public schools to use a voucher.”

Several other district leaders brought up the same concern to state officials at town halls hosted by the department in August and September to get public feedback about revising the grading formula. But state officials flatly deny there’s a connection between the voucher law and changes to the grading formula.

The grading law “was passed to promote transparency, and families should be able to know and to understand how their students’ schools are performing,” a department spokesman said in a statement to Chalkbeat.

Education Commissioner Lizzette Reynolds said the goal of the new formula is to generate grades that signify meaningful differences in school performance in a way that make sense to Tennesseans, whether they reflect proficiency, growth, or other criteria that are ultimately chosen.

“Whether you are a student, parent, teacher, policymaker, or an interested community member, school letter grades will empower all Tennesseans with the information they need to support K-12 public education and our local schools,” she said. 

State law requires that Tennessee’s model for grading schools take into account student performance and improvement, as demonstrated on annual state tests, and it allows inclusion of other reliable indicators of student achievement. The statute directed the education department to come up with a formula to turn those results into a single letter grade for each school, to be published online on the State Report Card. 

When developing the calculation under former Republican Gov. Bill Haslam’s administration, the department stressed achievement and growth in math and English language arts. And it created two pathways for schools to demonstrate achievement. 

One way was based on what the state calls “pure achievement,” meaning that a certain percentage of a school’s students demonstrated a required level of proficiency, skill, or knowledge. By this metric, a school that started the school year with a high proficiency rate was likely to receive an A even if it had not improved student learning during the school year. 

The other way rewarded schools that met certain goals to move their students toward proficiency from one year to the next. The idea was that all schools, especially those serving low-income students or that have historically performed poorly, should have an opportunity to get an A as long as they make strong progress toward the state’s achievement goals.

So even the achievement part of the grading formula could be fulfilled with strong growth. In this way, Tennessee was an early adopter of a growth-heavy model when developing its accountability system.

“All means all!” became the mantra of then-Education Commissioner Candice McQueen as she worked with education stakeholders for nearly a year to design a system to incentivize improvement for allstudents — whether they are considered low, average, or high achievers — as well as for all schools, regardless of their demographic makeup.

Tennessee had modest success with that approach, even though the actual letter grades were never issued. Before the pandemic hit in 2020, students were showing incremental growth in math and reading based on some of the nation’s highest proficiency standards.

But state lawmakers have become increasingly impatient with the pace of improvement, especially in reading. About a third of the state’s students meet grade-level standards on the English language arts test, which requires students to demonstrate the ability to read closely. 

“At the end of the day, I want to know: Can you add, subtract, multiply, and divide, and can you read, regardless of how much you have grown from one year to the other?” said Rep. Mark Cochran, an Englewood Republican, during one legislative hearing about the state’s emphasis on growth.

Meanwhile, the legislature has sought to provide more options for families dissatisfied with the performance of traditional public schools by introducing private school vouchers and allowing charter schools to open statewide. 

Now as Tennessee revamps its school grading system, Lee’s administration is poised to shift weight in the equation from growth to pure achievement. Reynolds wants the state to do that by eliminating the growth pathway for demonstrating achievement. Growth would still be a component of the overall grade, as dictated by state law, but a much smaller part.

“I want to be very clear that when we’re talking about academic achievement, we’re talking about academic achievement,” Reynolds, the new education commissioner, said at an Oct. 12 meeting of education stakeholders. 

Reynolds, who was sworn in to her post in July, launched the reevaluation of the grading system about a month later as her first major initiative. She invited Tennesseans to weigh in on how the state should measure a school’s academic success. At the time, state officials said all options were on the table.

At town halls, meetings with stakeholders, and in nearly 300 public comments from Tennesseans, state officials heard a common theme: Keep some kind of growth option as part of the achievement calculation. Measuring student performance with a single letter grade requires nuance, many educators said, and the growth-based model allows that.

A formula that’s weighted too heavily toward pure achievement, they warned, would produce grades that essentially mirror the economic profiles of the schools — with high-income communities getting the A’s and B’s — and families wouldn’t be able to use the grades to differentiate the performance of one high-poverty school from another.

“Given the strong correlation between achievement and poverty, I think it’s really difficult to talk about just achievement in isolation. We really need to balance this with growth,” said Madeline Price, policy director for the State Collaborative on Reforming Education, at an Oct. 5 meeting of the stakeholders group.

“All schools, especially low-income and traditionally low performing schools, should have a very real opportunity to receive an A” if they significantly improve student performance, the leaders of Tennessee’s school superintendent organization wrote in a letter to Reynolds.

Meaghan Turnbow, who coordinates programs for English language learners in fast-growing Rutherford County Schools, south of Nashville, noted pitfalls in a model that emphasizes proficiency over growth.

“We have students come to our district from all over the world with various education levels and English levels,” she wrote in a public comment. “Year to year they grow, but it may be several years before they are considered meeting or exceeding expectations.”

But soon after asking for public feedback, Tennessee’s new education chief signaled that she wanted to narrow the way the state judges student performance.

During an Aug. 29 town hall in Chattanooga, Reynolds acknowledged that the education department, before scuttling plans to issue grades in the fall of 2022 under former Education Commissioner Penny Schwinn, had run the numbers but didn’t like what it saw. For instance, she said, a school with 80 percent of its students reading on grade level might have received a B, but so might a school that had only 15 percent of students reading on grade level, while also demonstrating high growth.

“Is having a campus that has only 15 percent reading proficiency really a B school, if those kids cannot read?” Reynolds asked.

“We should celebrate growth,” she continued. “We should also celebrate achievement, because at the end of the day, kids can grow. But if they never get on grade level, they don’t have much of a future, particularly when it comes to reading and math.”

The A-F grading system, as required by the state, was billed as a simple, common-sense tool to help parents understand how their child’s school is doing and compare schools. 

But changes the department is making could add a new layer of complexity for school communities.

When Tennessee developed its accountability plan in 2017, it opted for a single system to satisfy both the state law and a 2015 federal accountability law called the Every Student Succeeds Act, or ESSA. That way, “we’re not sending different messages to parents and the general public,” said Winstead, the Maryville schools director who served on the state task force that developed the plan.

ESSA doesn’t require A-F grades, but it directs the state to use its own criteria to identify schools that are academically in the bottom 5 percent, plus other schools showing low performance or significant disparities across groups of students who are Black, Hispanic, economically disadvantaged, or English learners, or have learning disabilities. Such schools become eligible for additional federal funding.

Because of the link between the two laws, the schools that would earn the lowest grades under Tennessee’s current formula are the same ones that would get federal support to help them improve. And educators would work with a common set of goals, priorities, and incentives.

Under Reynolds, the Tennessee education department appears ready to decouple the state’s A-F system from its federal compliance plan. The change would result in Tennessee having two accountability systems, potentially producing conflicting assessments of how a school is doing.

For example, if the new state formula places less emphasis on certain student groups than the federal system does, a school that has big racial or economic disparities in student performance could still earn high grades from Tennessee based on overall proficiency rates. Meanwhile, a school with low proficiency rates would get a D or an F, even though it may serve certain groups of students better than an A or B school.

Mary Batiwalla, former assistant commissioner of assessment and accountability in Tennessee, says what’s going on here has parallels in Texas, where Reynolds used to be chief deputy commissioner. Officials there changed their grading criteria this year to apply to schools retroactively. However, after some school districts sued that state over the changes, Texas delayed the release of its grades.

Texas lawmakers are also in the midst of a special session on vouchers to debate whether students should be able to use public dollars to attend private schools. Batiwalla worries that officials in both states are hijacking the grading systems for political aims, not to incentivize school communities to improve.

“If you want to do vouchers, do vouchers,” said Batiwalla, an outspoken critic of Reynolds’ efforts. “Don’t take away this policy tool that has the potential to drive improvement from the rest of the public schools.”

Other tweaks are likely when Tennessee releases its new equation in the days or weeks ahead, just before giving schools their first set of grades.

The department has heard calls to include social studies and science scores in the calculation, as well as data related to third-grade reading, participation in tutoring programs, and postsecondary indicators like dual enrollment and career and technical education offerings, just to name a few. There’s also a growing consensus around ditching student absenteeism data, which is a factor in the current equation.

But most educators have their eye on the growth vs. proficiency debate. They worry that greater emphasis on proficiency will motivate schools to focus on improving “bubble kids” — those scoring just under proficiency — instead of working to improve students at all levels of achievement.

“You’re incentivizing bad choices that serve just a few kids instead of all kids,” Winstead said.

Winstead’s suburban school system should be fine. Maryville City Schools, near Knoxville, is one of the state’s highest-achieving districts and stands to benefit if Tennessee’s revamped grading formula puts more weight on proficiency. But Winstead philosophically disagrees with the approach that the state appears to be taking.

“This is going to demoralize a lot of school communities,” he said, “teachers, kids, and parents — folks who have done incredible things to move kids forward.”

Marta Aldrich is a senior correspondent and covers the statehouse for Chalkbeat Tennessee. Contact her at maldrich@chalkbeat.org. Laura Testino covers Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Reach Laura at LTestino@chalkbeat.org.

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

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MSCS Plan Could Shutter Several Schools

Draft plans from Memphis-Shelby County Schools include proposals to close, consolidate, and redevelop school buildings. Administrative offices, like the campus at 160 S. Hollywood St., could be affected by consolidation plans, too. Laura Testino / Chalkbeat

Draft plans from Memphis-Shelby County Schools for overhauling its aging facilities include proposals to save the district more than $200 million by repurposing 20 academic buildings and consolidating administrative offices.

MSCS officials shared the plans on Wednesday during the first meeting of a new steering committee that’s helping the district develop its buildings strategy and generate community support for it. The committee is made up of a school board member and other elected officials, and leaders from government agencies, local nonprofit organizations, and community groups. 

The final plan will include school closures and consolidations. But MSCS wants the committee to help the district broaden the scope of the plan to determine new uses for the buildings that will close, improve academic programming at existing schools, and enhance the role of schools as community centers. Such an overhaul could affect students in almost every MSCS school in some way over the next 10 years.

It’s a big, complex task that will have to navigate Memphis school traditions and overcome the controversial legacy of previous consolidation plans. Success will depend on the district’s ability to build support among school board and community members, find new funding sources, and see its plan through a leadership transition that will begin next spring, when interim Superintendent Toni Williams’ tenure winds down.

For months, Williams has been promising a comprehensive facilities plan to deal with underused buildings and a growing list of deferred maintenance projects. Previous district leaders made the same promise, but their plans never fully materialized. 

Williams hopes the involvement of the steering committee will set the latest effort apart. She reminded the members that they weren’t there to create “Toni’s plan.” 

During the closed-door meeting Wednesday, district officials avoided naming specific schools targeted for closure, consolidation or redevelopment, concerned that doing so would provoke “emotional decisions” rather than strategic ones, Williams told the committee. 

“Let’s do this together,” she said. 

The draft proposals shared Wednesday broadly outline a first round of potential closures and investments over the next five years, affecting some 50 schools and administrative buildings. If additional funding comes through, the impact could spread to a total of 110 buildings and properties over the next decade, or roughly half of MSCS’ sites.  

The most specific elements of the district’s proposals so far involve efforts to reduce costs upfront — before seeking new funding — which the district projects would produce a saving of $215 million. 

The bulk of that would come from repurposing — likely closing — 23 buildings, and eliminating nearly $110 million in estimated deferred maintenance costs. The move would free up $24 million annually in operating funds.

District officials described these plans as “academic spaces for reuse,” rather than “school closures.” No one identified the proposed 23 sites by name.

District officials offered an overview of how the broader strategy could produce changes in different parts of town. The district has used a combination of factors — enrollment, building utilization, proximity to other schools, demographic trends, deferred maintenance needs, and feeder patterns — to determine which schools to consider for proposed closure or consolidation. 

Schools that are set to receive new students would get new investments, as would schools with historically low academic performance.

For the buildings that do close, the district envisions being more engaged in determining what happens to them afterward, including vetting redevelopment proposals. 

“You all have an opportunity to really ask for proposals that specify impact,” said Ernest Strickland, a steering committee member who heads the Black Business Association of Memphis. 

The chair of the committee, school board member Kevin Woods, added that MSCS should consider ways that reusing closed schools could generate revenue and create excitement in the community, rather than leaving a blighted, vacant site.

“I think too often, the reason that these meetings aren’t often as courageous as we need them to be is because anytime you lead with the idea of closing schools, that’s the only image” shared by news media, Woods said.  

John Zeanah, director of the Memphis and Shelby County Division of Planning and Development and a former employee of the Memphis City Schools’ planning office, suggested that the district start earlier to find ways to reuse buildings, as enrollment drops below capacity.

“Let’s not wait until a building is ready to be closed to be thinking about adaptive reuse,” Zeanah said.

Another chunk of savings would come from consolidating nine of the district’s administrative buildings. This is what the district had in mind when the school board approved the purchase of the Bayer Building at 3030 Jackson Ave. in 2018 as a new district headquarters.

The consolidation would free up an estimated $65 million, counting savings on maintenance costs and proceeds from the sales of the administrative buildings. The plans did not make clear which buildings would remain, but suggested some 1,700 staffers would relocate. Currently, most of the district’s central office staff work from 160 S. Hollywood St., about 3 miles south of the Bayer Building.  

To execute the kind of broad, long-range strategy that it envisions, the district will need steady cooperation from the school board that carries through the expected superintendent transition this spring and summer. It will need the steering committee to remain engaged and united behind the broader objectives of optimizing the way the district uses its space. And it will need members of the community to buy in to a plan that is certain to disrupt routines and traditions in neighborhoods across the city.

But more than that, it will need money. 

This summer, the Shelby County Commission approved a tax increase to help fund two new high schools in Frayser and Cordova, but those projects account for just a fraction of the district’s building needs. And the commission in recent years has approved only half the district’s requests for capital funds.

On Wednesday, Williams repeated calls for new funds from the federal government, plus the City of Memphis. Neither source is a sure bet. 

The federal COVID relief aid that has helped many school districts around the country fund their construction projects is about to run out. And in Tennessee, a legislative panel is actually exploring whether the state can feasibly forgo federal education funding altogether rather than submit to the regulations that come with it. 

Mayor-elect Paul Young has said he would support city funding for improved school buildings, but that would require support from the City Council. Council Chairman Martavius Jones is a former school board member who sits on the steering committee. But because of term limits, he won’t be on the council next year when Young takes over as mayor.

The district could benefit from private support through its collaboration with More for Memphis, a community development initiative spearheaded by the education-focused nonprofit Seeding Success.

“Our unique opportunity is to position this infrastructure plan at the heart of our total community redevelopment,” said Mark Sturgis, the CEO of Seeding Success. Sturgis explained how federal infrastructure goals align with the local incentives within the More for Memphis plan for community redevelopment.

More for Memphis is a five-year, $100 million investment that can be applied to this work, Sturgis said.

The final MSCS plans will reflect the results coming from an updated facilities assessment the school board approved last month. The district says its current estimate of deferred maintenance costs is $458 million, a figure that hasn’t budged much despite years of investments from Shelby County and the district.   

“All this is simply a dream if we don’t have the proper resources to make it a reality,” Woods said.

The committee’s suggestions will inform meetings of subcommittees, groups that will include other board members, plus people from school campuses and the communities, MSCS leaders said. 

Another steering committee meeting is set for October 31st. MSCS board members will be updated on the draft proposals and suggestions during a retreat scheduled for November 3rd and 4th.

Wednesday’s committee meeting, facilitated by former politician and public relations professional Deidre Malone, was not open to the public. But a Chalkbeat Tennessee reporter learned of the meeting and attended it. No other media or members of the public were present.

Deborah Fisher, executive director for the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, said that whether the committee is subject to open-meetings laws depends on how it was created and what it’s being asked to do.

Williams announced the steering committee during a school board meeting last month. 

Documents associated with the committee should be public records, Fisher said.

“Closing schools is a big deal, and sometimes needs to be done. It’s a hard decision that school districts make,” Fisher added. “So it needs to be a transparent process.”

Committee members have access to additional information that wasn’t included in the district’s slide presentation Wednesday, and will receive more data and draft proposals. Williams cautioned them against sharing details of what they received.

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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Peabody Elementary Will Remain Closed for the School Year

Credit: Google Maps

Peabody Elementary School is closed until next fall due to issues with mold and to allow time for other building upgrades, Memphis-Shelby County Schools officials told families last week.

School officials first located mold in the Midtown building in September, initially prompting a dayslong closure. When that wasn’t long enough to fix the problem, the 323 students were relocated to two nearby schools. 

Relocating for the rest of the school year “is the best and least disruptive option as we restore this historic gem,” MSCS wrote in a letter to families, which was shared with the press. 

Peabody students in K-5 will continue going to class at Middle College High School, which is about a mile away from Peabody. (Until spring 2022, Middle College High also housed Maxine Smith STEAM Academy, which relocated permanently to East High School to alleviate overcrowding.) 

Pre-kindergarten students from Peabody will continue going to W.H. Brewster Elementary, about three miles away.

Peabody Elementary will get some renovations in addition to the mold remediation, MSCS told school families Friday. When students return for the 2024-25 school year, the century-old building will have upgraded floors, ceiling tiles, duct work, and lighting, plus repaired brick and windows. 

Upgrades could be coming to Middle College High, too, officials said. Constructed in 1930, the building is home to a sought-after optional program in partnership with neighboring Christian Brothers University. 

This marks the second consecutive year that some MSCS students have had to relocate midyear due to issues with aging buildings. 

Last fall, students at Cummings K-8 Optional School had to relocate after the school’s library ceiling partially collapsed just days into the new school year. The structure that houses the library was built in 1930. The building has since received some additional upgrades, but has yet to reopen. Students remain relocated at LaRose Elementary School. 

More school building upgrades will be on the way as district leaders work with a new committee of elected officials and leaders in the nonprofit sector to develop a comprehensive plan to address facility needs. 

Last month, board members approved funds for a new assessment that will provide updated data about each building. Interim Superintendent Toni Williams called the project a “massive undertaking.” 

Chalkbeat Tennessee Bureau Chief Tonyaa Weathersbee contributed. 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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Chalkbeat TN: What Could Paul Young’s Election Mean for Memphis Education?

Paul Young at his HQ opening (Photo: Jackson Baker)

Downtown Memphis Commission leader Paul Young will be Memphis’ next mayor, a position that gives him no formal authority over Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS), but could allow him to revive the relationship between city and district if he follows through on his campaign plans.

Such a change would come at a pivotal time, bringing additional dollars to the district as it faces hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance projects and seeks to develop a facility plan that better supports academic improvement. 

“We need new revenue sources for our schools, and I want to bring my track record of creating coalitions to City Hall to do just that,” Young told Chalkbeat in September. 

Those funds would support capital investments and upgrades to MSCS buildings, Young said, a proposal that aligns with the interests of the MSCS school board and interim Superintendent Toni Williams. A 14-person committee of government officials and nonprofit sector leaders is set to convene later this fall to develop the new facilities plan.

Young will take office on January 1st. The success of his plans would depend on support from the Memphis City Council, whose makeup will be settled after runoff elections in November. And the MSCS school board will need to carry the torch for the district’s infrastructure plans through the expected leadership transition this spring, when Williams’ tenure ends and a permanent superintendent takes over.

Young’s proposals distinguished him from several other frontrunners in the race, which he won with 28 percent of the vote Thursday, according to unofficial results from the Shelby County Election Commission. (There are no runoffs in Memphis mayoral elections.) 

Others who got more than 20 percent of the vote include Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner (23 percent), former Memphis Mayor and school Superintendent Willie Herenton (22 percent), and attorney and former Shelby County Commission Chair Van Turner (21 percent).

Among them, only Turner proposed that the city fund MSCS through annual appropriations, the same way the county currently does.

Candidate Michelle McKissack, a current MSCS board member, received less than 2 percent of the vote.

Chalkbeat posed questions to all the candidates about their positions on education, and published the responses it received in a mayoral voter guide.

Here are the responses Young submitted on September 1st:

I am committed to providing a strong foundation for our youth through quality education and investing in youth development. This means equitable access to resources, teacher support, and innovative learning environments that empower every student to succeed. I believe in engaging directly with educators, parents, and community members to collaborate on and champion effective policies that address the unique challenges our students and young people face.

My mayoral administration will draw insights from a diverse range of stakeholders including educators, students, parents, and community advocates. Through open dialogue and collaboration, we will craft informed policies to continue to do better by our young people. Progress will be measured through data-driven indicators such as improved graduation rates, literacy and test scores, and increased community engagement. Transparency and accountability will guide us toward achieving our educational goals.

Many Memphis students and families confront barriers like poverty, gun violence, and over-policing that hinder learning. By offering comprehensive support services such as mental health programs, after-school initiatives, and community-centered efforts, we will create safer environments where learning can thrive. Collaborating with local organizations and promoting restorative justice practices will contribute to holistic development and improved educational outcomes for our youth.

I believe that the city can support MSCS through capital investments, and also through improving and upgrading facilities’ infrastructure. The city can also support through after school enrichment and extracurricular programs. We need new revenue sources for our schools, and I want to bring my track record of creating coalitions to City Hall to do just that.

We would continue to support early childhood efforts and seek to grow the number of spaces available for young people in our community. Our efforts would be informed by MSCS and our partners.

I think that MSCS should have a strong collaborative working relationship on the types of programming that is taught to children in our community. The city should support investment in facilities, infrastructure, and extracurricular activities. The relationship between the mayor and the superintendent should be a strong partnership where they advocate for Memphis children together at every level.

A high quality school is one where there are various approaches to educating children where they are. We must meet the individual needs of children while not holding them back. This work must take place in and out of the classroom, and schools can and should offer holistic services to help support the whole child and their unique needs. Crosstown High, East High School, White Station are a few schools that come to mind.

I went to East High School — Ms. Foster was my geometry teacher there and she made the subject matter fun and interesting to me. She pushed me further than I thought I could go. As far as leadership, she showed me we can always be better, we can always do more. I learned from her that intellectual curiosity can make work seem like fun, and I try to bring that spirit to everyone on the team with me.

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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Panel to Reject Federal Funds Has “No Predetermined Outcome”

State Capitol (Photo: Tennessee State Government)

A leader of the group of lawmakers exploring whether Tennessee can feasibly reject nearly $1.9 billion in federal education funding says that the panel’s work will begin in early November, and that its findings — not politics — will guide its recommendations.

“There is no predetermined outcome for this working group, or for what the information we gather is going to show,” Sen. Jon Lundberg, a co-chair of the panel, said Wednesday.

“We want to look at what federal education money we get, where it goes, what we’re required to do to get those funds, and ultimately what’s the return on the investment,” the Bristol Republican told Chalkbeat. “I think this will give us a good overview.”

Lundberg, who also chairs the Senate Education Committee, was responding to criticism from Democrats that Republicans are seeking to undermine public education, cater to charter and private school interests, and advance the political aspirations of House Speaker Cameron Sexton, a Crossville Republican and likely candidate for governor in 2026.

In February, Sexton said Tennessee should consider forgoing U.S. education dollars to free schools from federal rules and regulations, and should make up the difference with state funding. On Sept. 22, he and Lt. Gov. Randy McNally, an Oak Ridge Republican, appointed eight Republicans and two Democrats to the working group to look into the idea and report back by Jan. 9, when the General Assembly convenes a new session.

Most of the federal money the state receives supports low-income students, English language learners, and students with disabilities. Tennessee school districts that are most reliant on U.S. dollars tend to be rural, and have more low-income and disabled students, less capacity for local revenue, and lower test scores in English language arts, according to a recent report from the Sycamore Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

Lundberg expects to release the panel’s meeting schedule later this week. But at this point, its members have more questions than answers, including what such a shift in funding would mean for kids. If the January 9th deadline doesn’t allow for a comprehensive review, he and co-chair Debra Moody, who also chairs a House education committee, plan to ask for more time.

“This is too big an ask to not be thorough,” he said.

If the committee finds ways for the state to feasibly wean itself from federal education money that Tennesseans help generate through their taxes, Lundberg expects legislation to come out of its work. But he acknowledged that state revenue collections have lagged in recent months, potentially making it harder to cut the cord.

“Revenues are a valid concern, but that’s not our charge at this point,” he said. “We just want to do a deep dive on where we stand.” 

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bo Watson warned lawmakers in August that Tennessee likely will need to begin curbing state spending. But on Wednesday, he endorsed the panel’s task.

“I think it’s premature to say whether there will be budget constraints,” said the Hixson Republican. “Evaluating our programs and our funding is always a healthy exercise.”

Even if officials decide the state can afford to pass on federal funds, JC Bowman, executive director of Professional Educators of Tennessee, questions whether it could effectively manage resources designed to support underserved communities and ensure equal access to education.

He cites the Achievement School District as one example of poor oversight for a state-run program intended to serve students attending low-performing schools. The turnaround district took over dozens of neighborhood schools beginning in 2012, mostly in Memphis, and turned many of them over to charter operators. But it has had few successes to show for its decade of work.

Lundberg said that example shouldn’t stop the state from investigating the possibility.

“Do I trust the state more than the federal government? Absolutely,” Lundberg said. “I think that government that operates closest to the people is the best government.”

Gov. Bill Lee has said he’s open to the idea and denounced what he called “excessive overreach” by the federal government. However, he didn’t give specific examples on education when answering questions from reporters last week.

Advocates for historically underserved student populations say federal oversight is needed to ensure that the state and local districts adequately provide for every student and school.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats pointed out that the federal government provided nearly $30 million last year to public schools in Cumberland County, which Sexton represents. That’s 44 percent of the East Tennessee district’s budget. Three school districts in Anderson County, where McNally lives, received $31 million in U.S. funds, which covered 32 percent of their budgets.

You can look up exactly how much federal education funding is on the line for every Tennessee county.

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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Tennessee’s New Education Chief Says Implementing Policy Is Her Strength and the Governor’s Priority

Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds takes her oath of office as Tennessee’s new education commissioner, effective July 1, from Gov. Bill Lee. Beside her are her husband, David, and son Luke. Courtesy of the State of Tennessee

Three weeks into her job as Tennessee’s education chief, Lizzette Gonzalez Reynolds says her charge from Gov. Bill Lee is to implement existing major policy changes — from how reading is taught to the continued rollout of private school vouchers — not to craft new initiatives.

She feels prepared for that role, having overseen state-level education policy work in Texas for nearly a decade, including six years as its No. 2 administrator. She also has years of policy and political experience at the federal level, and most recently led policy work for the advocacy group ExcelinEd, founded by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

“Implementation is kind of my sweet spot,” Reynolds said. “When I was chief deputy commissioner in Texas, that’s what I did.”

Among her priorities in Tennessee: executing new programs to develop stronger readers; troubleshooting the switch to a new K-12 funding formula as of July 1; strengthening school models to prepare students for success after high school; and operating and expanding Lee’s controversial voucher program that gives taxpayer money to eligible students to attend private schools.

Meanwhile, much of the work to roll out a comprehensive new school safety package, approved this spring after a mass school shooting in Nashville, has shifted under a new law to the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security.

Since her official start on July 1, Reynolds’ schedule has been packed with meetings with staff, lawmakers, government officials, and education stakeholders. 

Among the latter is JC Bowman, executive director of the Professional Educators of Tennessee, who described Reynolds as “straightforward and direct.” 

“She made it clear that she is here to serve students and educators in Tennessee. … I think she will do well here if she will stay above the political fray,” said Bowman, who was a frequent critic of Reynolds’ predecessor, Penny Schwinn.

This week, the new commissioner travels to Memphis, home to the state’s largest school district, for introductions with local officials and community leaders.

Last week, in her first media interview since Lee announced her hiring in May, Reynolds sat down with Chalkbeat to talk about her background, priorities, and leadership style. Since she’s on a learning curve in a new state, questions about policy specifics were off the table.

But she was open about her own K-12 experiences as a public school kid growing up in Harlingen, Texas, a heavily Hispanic community in the Rio Grande Valley near the U.S.-Mexico border. 

She described how, as a Hispanic American and a female, she experienced discrimination. As a first-generation college graduate and the oldest of four children of working-class parents, she benefited from scholarships and financial aid. And, as a parent of three children, one of whom was diagnosed with a disability in elementary school, she tapped both public and private schools to find the best fit for her family.

Reynolds said she jumped at the chance to join the administration of Lee, a Republican businessman who pushed for sweeping changes to education in his first term and was easily reelected last year.

“Tennessee has always been the bellwether state of doing things that challenge the adults in the system to continue to do better,” she said. “I want to be part of that story.”

Below are highlights of Chalkbeat’s interview, which has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

Getting to know you on a personal level, describe your own education experience. Did you go to public schools? Private schools? How did they shape you?

My only early experience in a private school was attending a Catholic school in pre-K. From kindergarten through 12th grade, I went to public schools in Harlingen.

From an early age, my mom drilled into me that “you got to go to college.” So I was always in a competition to be at the top of my class. I was going to be an astronaut, by God!

I loved math but, when I took trigonometry in high school and it wasn’t connecting, my teacher was like, “You know, you’re a girl. You really don’t need to be doing this. You probably should just drop my class.” So I did. 

I was shy and I couldn’t wait to get out of Harlingen. I was blessed with a great school counselor. When I told her I wanted to go to college, she said, “OK, here’s what you need to do.”

I got a merit scholarship to attend Southwestern University, where people in the financial aid office became my best friends and I was able to cover tuition increases through a combination of work-study and Pell grants. By then, I wanted to become an accountant. But after taking a political science class with a truly dynamic professor, I changed my mind. I wanted to save the world.

Your selection was announced by the governor’s office on the same day that Schwinn’s impending departure was announced. How did you come to this job?

A lot of the work I did for the Foundation for Excellence in Education (ExcelinEd) was not only to advocate for its policy agenda but to work across the country with other advocates and supporters and philanthropy. I was on the proverbial “list” of people across the country who might be interested in being a state-level deputy or chief. And I’ve paid my dues. I had thought maybe I might lead the Texas Education Agency someday. But I wasn’t actively looking. I’d been at ExcelinEd almost seven years and loved my job. 

This spring, the governor’s office here called and wanted to talk about Tennessee’s chief position and I said, ‘Of course I’ll talk.’ What a great opportunity to meet Gov. Lee, who had a great relationship with Gov. Bush. (During the week of April 11) I came to Nashville and met with (Chief Operating Officer) Brandon Gibson and then interviewed with the governor the next day.

When I walked into his office, everybody was so awesome. Gov. Lee looked at me and said, “Why do you want to be commissioner of education in Tennessee?” I basically said, “Who wouldn’t want to be commissioner here?” Tennessee has always been the bellwether state of doing things that challenge the adults in the system to continue to do better. It’s still strong in accountability and assessment. There’s great work passed in this administration and previous administrations. And then, just the fact that the governor really cares about education, that it’s a priority.

Tennessee is just a good place to be. I want to be part of that story and the continued success of this state with kids. At this agency, we don’t touch kids every day, but we help influence what happens in the classroom because of the supports and resources that we provide.

When I walked out of the governor’s office, I said to myself, ‘I want to work for that man and I’m going to be really disappointed if I don’t get the offer.’

About a week and a half later, I got the offer.

What did you and Gov. Lee talk about in your interview? Why do you think he picked you?

Bottom line, this job was going to be about implementation and execution of the agenda passed through the legislature and through his leadership and (Penny Schwinn’s) leadership at the agency. A lot has already been done. Now the hard work is the implementation piece and that is kind of my sweet spot.

When I was chief deputy commissioner in Texas, that’s what I did: Making sure resources are there, thinking about the right resources, bringing folks in to support those implementation efforts — all the pieces of the puzzle that need to come together to ensure that kids and educators get what they need to be successful.

But sometimes implementation also requires you to say no to some things or to certain vendors. 

Because of your policy work with ExcelinEd, with its focus on school choice and privatization, many stakeholders think your selection suggests that voucher expansion and advancing choice programs are Job One for you under this administration. How would you respond?

First of all, it’s not about privatization. Our No. 1 priority at ExcelinEd was to improve the system because we know that about 90 percent of our kids are in a public school system. Second priority is the options outside the system, which includes ESAs (education savings accounts, a kind of private school voucher), charter schools, open enrollment, public school choice, letting parents go where they want to go in the public school system. Third priority is reimagining the system, so really thinking about what other ways we can develop these comprehensive high schools. That’s how we think at ExcelinEd, and that’s why I think I was a good candidate for this job.

Yes, ESAs are part of the package, but it’s not the only package. There is no silver bullet when it comes to education. ESAs are great, but they’re not for everybody. It all depends on the parents and the families and what they want to do and what options they want to pursue.

It wasn’t that long ago that a Tennessee governor wouldn’t think of choosing an education commissioner who didn’t have teaching experience. But you don’t, nor do you have a teaching license. How will you have “street cred” with educators here, given that your background is primarily in policy and politics?

As a parent of public school kids, I’m as close to the classroom as you’re going to get because I’m a consumer of the public school system. To say that my experience is irrelevant, I don’t think it’s very fair. But in that vein, I also want to listen and learn. Earlier today, for instance, I met with folks at the Tennessee Education Association (the state’s largest teacher group). 

I’ve got to come at it with empathy and support. Have I done their job every day? No, I haven’t. But we’re all in this together. I’m going to listen. I’m going to engage and implement in a way that is fair and where the decision-making is transparent. 

The department has had a number of significant departures in recent months, including Chief Academic Officer Lisa Coons and Deputy Commissioner Eve Carney, who was a veteran manager responsible for many of the state’s biggest education programs and initiatives. How are you building out your cabinet and filling out gaps in leadership? Will you look inside or outside of the state?

I’m looking for the best qualified folks, but my preference is to find people in Tennessee. We just hired Kristy Brown from Jackson as our chief academic officer. We need to fill the role of chief program officer, and I’d love to find a Tennessean for that. I don’t feel the need to look outside of the state because I think there’s a lot of qualified people here. Tennessee is where reform really percolated and expanded and continues to live.  

Have you and your family officially moved from Texas to Tennessee, or do you plan to?

I’m here and I’m moving soon into a place in East Nashville. My husband is staying in Austin with our youngest son, who’s a rising junior, until he finishes high school. Our son wants to look at colleges here, so I’m super excited.

I don’t know if I’ll go back to Austin to live. We’ll see.

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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More Memphis Charter Schools Could Face Closure After State’s Failed Turnaround Effort

Humes Middle School is one of five charter schools in the Achievement School District seeking to return to Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Credit: Caroline Bauman

Several of Memphis’ lowest performing schools face an uncertain future — and possible closure — as their charter agreements with Tennessee’s turnaround district near expiration.

Five of them, including MLK College Prep High School, are seeking approval to return to Memphis-Shelby County Schools as charter schools after a decade in the state-run Achievement School District. But MSCS officials have recommended denying their charter applications, along with bids from four proposed new charter schools. 

If the MSCS board votes to accept the district’s recommendations and deny the charters when it meets Tuesday, it would leave some 2,000 students with high academic needs in limbo, unsure of where they’ll attend classes in the 2024-25 school year. 

Another web of decisions would determine what happens next to those students, and to the schools. So far, neither the district nor the board has articulated a comprehensive strategy for dealing with the fallout of the ASD’s collapse.

“We should have talked about this two years ago, since we all knew it was coming,” said Bobby White, head of the charter company that runs MLK College Prep.

MSCS officials have said they talk to operators and tailor individual decisions because “each school in the ASD is unique.”

The board could defy the district recommendations and approve the charters, as it has done before. But the district argues that it’s not in its interest to bring poorly performing charter schools back into the district. This year, all five applicants bear the same low-performing “priority” designation that primed them for state takeover a decade ago.

“We want high quality seats for our students,” said Brittany Monda, MSCS’ assistant superintendent of charter schools. 

When the state assigned its lowest-performing public schools — most of them in Memphis — to the Achievement School District, the idea was that charter operators would take them over, turn them around, and eventually return the schools to the home districts in better shape. 

But the plan didn’t work. Many of the schools languished or continued to perform poorly under the charter operators. That means that despite 10 years of state oversight, most do not meet state and local performance standards used by local officials to evaluate charter applications.

Data presented by MSCS indicates that despite some gains over the years, each of the five schools has fewer than 12 percent of students on track in reading and math.

State law allows Tennessee school boards to close charter schools in their own portfolios that have priority designations, and that could happen in Memphis if the MSCS board accepts the ASD schools and they don’t make significant academic gains. Memphis policy favors new charter schools that would give other options to students who go to a low-performing school. 

If the board turns down the ASD schools, MSCS could decide to resume operating them as traditional schools. Otherwise, the ASD schools would close when their charters expire at the end of the 2023-24 school year.

It’s no surprise that MSCS is wary of assuming responsibility for more schools. District leaders have been trying over the past decade to align school capacity with shifts in enrollment, and to figure out how to improve the condition of decaying school buildings. Facility plans have been continually revised in recent years, but have never been fully executed. 

Consolidating schools that are operating under capacity would offer better learning environments for students, officials say, and cut down on a costly list of building repair projects. 

Interim Superintendent Toni Williams is poised to deliver a new facilities plan next month. The ASD charter schools — operating in buildings MSCS still owns — could be part of this plan. 

Already, the district is planning for a new Frayser high school that would combine students at Trezevant High School and MLK College Prep. The district plans to build it at the MLK site.

White, the leader of MLK College Prep’s charter operator, Frayser Community Schools, has said that if the MSCS board approves the charter school, he would end the charter agreement early, when it’s time for students at MLK College Prep to move into the new building. 

But if the school isn’t approved as a charter, the district will have to choose between operating it or letting it close. If it closes, students currently zoned to MLK College Prep would have to be reassigned to Trezevant or other schools until a new high school is built.

Stephanie Love, a school board member and longtime advocate for students in the ASD, peppered district officials with questions about school closures and consolidations during a committee meeting last week. 

She pointed out that the district makes decisions to close and consolidate traditional schools based on academic performance, enrollment, and school building needs — criteria similar to the ones it uses to evaluate charter schools.

Many ASD schools have closed already without any MSCS school board vote. 

If the five ASD schools seeking charter approvals eventually return to the district as traditional schools, they could become part of MSCS’ own turnaround model, called the Innovation Zone, or iZone. The model takes advantage of centralized resources and pays teachers more for working a longer day.  

A handful of former ASD schools joined the iZone last year, as traditional MSCS schools, and another will join this school year. Monda, the charter office leader, said the returned schools have shown “promising results,” but did provide any data. (Charter schools cannot be part of the iZone.)

Tuesday’s board vote on the five ASD schools — and the four new applicants — won’t be the end of the story for any of them. 

If they lose their bids for charter approval, they could appeal the decision to the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission, or in some cases reapply next year.

White, the ASD charter operator, said that if the board turns down his applications, he doesn’t plan to appeal. He said he wants to support the district’s plan for Memphis students. But he said there should have been a more comprehensive plan for the schools serving the Memphis and Tennessee students who have struggled the most academically. 

“Our contracts say our time is up after the 10th year,” he said. “And I’m hoping that we have an opportunity after this round … to really dig in on what’s going to happen to … all the other schools coming back in the years to follow.”

Another set of ASD schools serving about 2,000 more students have charters set to expire in coming school years. 

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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TCAP Scores Climb for Second Straight Year After Pandemic

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Tennessee’s third set of test scores from the pandemic era improved again across all core subjects and grades, even exceeding pre-pandemic proficiency rates in English language arts and social studies.

State-level results released Thursday showed an overall increase in proficiency since last year for public school students, and a surge since 2021, when the first test scores from the pandemic period declined dramatically across the nation.

But the performance of historically underserved students — including children with disabilities, those from low-income families, and students of color — still lags. Those groups of students, who already trailed their peers before disruptions to schooling began in 2020, also spent the longest time learning remotely during the public health emergency caused by Covid-19.

The latest scores continue the state’s upward trend of pandemic recovery, based on standardized tests under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, also known as TCAP. 

The academic snapshot suggests that Tennessee’s early investments in summer learning camps and intensive tutoring are paying off to counter three straight years of Covid-related disruptions.

Governor Bill Lee called the results “encouraging,” while interim Education Commissioner Sam Pearcy praised educators, students, and their families for their hard work.

“These gains signal that we’re focused on the right work to advance student learning,” Pearcy told reporters during a morning call. “And as a result of that, we know that we will all continue to keep our foot on the gas to keep this momentum rolling.”

Beginning in the third grade, Tennessee students take TCAPs in four core subjects. This year’s students exceeded pre-pandemic levels in English language arts and social studies, while improving in math and science.

As previously reported, Tennessee’s third-grade proficiency rate jumped by over 4 percentage points to more than 40 percent on tests given this spring. Many of the other 60 percent have to participate in learning intervention programs to avoid being held back a year under a new state law.

Results for historically underserved student groups reflected both good and bad news.

The good news: Improvement for students of color, children from low-income families, those with disabilities, and those learning to speak English mostly paralleled the gains of their more affluent, white, or nondisabled peers.

The bad news: Tennessee isn’t closing those persistent gaps. Our analysis below focused on overall performance in English language arts.

The statewide data is available online by clicking “2023 State Assessment” on a new dashboard of the Tennessee Report Card.

District-level results, which are being reviewed by district leaders, are scheduled to be released in July.

And for the first time under a long-delayed change to the state’s accountability policies, this year’s TCAP results will be used to help calculate A-to-F grades this fall for Tennessee’s 1,700-plus public schools. The state has deferred the new accountability measure for five years because of testing and data disruptions, most recently caused by the pandemic.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with graphics and analysis.

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

Kae Petrin is a data and graphics reporter for Chalkbeat. Contact Kae at kpetrin@chalkbeat.org.

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

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More Than 25,000 Third Graders Tested Last Week to Avoid Being Held Back

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More than half of Tennessee third graders at risk of being held back because of their reading test scores took another test last week to try to advance to fourth grade without summer school or tutoring.

The state began offering the retest last Monday. By Friday, 25,304 third graders had submitted a second reading assessment, said Brian Blackley, a spokesman for the state education department.

Preliminary scores from the initial test in the spring indicated that about 60 percent of Tennessee’s 74,000 third-graders could be at risk of being held back under a new state retention policy for third graders who struggle with reading. But that number is before factoring in exemptions under the law.

The testing do-over marks the end of a pivotal school year for third graders, who were kindergartners in 2020 when the pandemic shuttered school buildings and caused unprecedented learning disruptions. 

A 2021 law enacted a tough new retention policy starting this school year for students who don’t test as proficient readers by the end of third grade. The law also created several learning intervention programs to help students catch up.

Since the 2022-23 retention policy is based on the results of a single test under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, retesting using a similar “TCAP-style test” was part of the state’s plan for giving third graders another opportunity to improve their score.

The retesting window continues through June 5th, but schools were expected to complete most of the do-overs this week so families can get their students’ results back sooner.

State officials have pledged that test vendor Pearson will return new scores within 48 hours after submission.

To get promoted to the fourth grade, third graders who who score as “approaching” reading proficiency must either attend a summer program with a 90 percent attendance rate, then show adequate growth on a test administered at the end of the program; or they must take advantage of state-funded tutoring throughout the 2023-24 school year.

Third graders who score in the bottom category of readers known as “below” must participate in both intervention programs to get promoted to fourth grade. 

Summer learning camps start as soon as next week at some schools, although the schedule varies by district. For instance, Nashville’s program starts on June 1st, while Memphis-Shelby County Schools launches its summer learning academies on June 20th.

This week’s retests, via the state’s online Schoolnet platform, started off bumpy in some districts due to technical issues but smoothed out after the first day, Blackley said.

There were “isolated tech issues” last Monday in some districts that were “fully resolved,” Blackley said. “Our testing vendor, Pearson, has been troubleshooting effectively to manage and will continue to do so throughout the entire window,” he said.

Blackley added that technical problems will not delay the return of scores.

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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Reading Proficiency Improved But Most Third Graders Risk Getting Held Back

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Tennessee’s third-grade reading proficiency rate jumped by more than 4 percentage points to 40 percent on this year’s state tests. But that means up to 60 percent of its third graders could be at risk of being held back under the state’s tough new retention law.

The results, based on preliminary scores, showed some level of improvement in all four of the state’s reading performance categories. The percentage of third graders who scored as advanced readers, the state’s top performance category, rose 3 percentage points to 13 percent, the largest figure in over a decade.

Tennessee released the statewide data Monday as families began receiving news about whether their third graders scored well enough on spring tests to move on to fourth grade.

While the state won’t release the final scores until this summer, the preliminary scores offer the first statewide glimpse at the effects of a controversial 2021 law passed in an effort to stem pandemic learning loss and boost Tennessee’s long-lagging scores for reading.

Gov. Bill Lee, who championed the 2021 law, called the gains “historic.”

And Penny Schwinn, the state’s outgoing education commissioner, pointed to Tennessee’s new investments and strategies for literacy, including an array of programs to train teachers on phonics-based reading instruction.

“While we still have a long way to go before we reach the goals laid out in legislation,” Schwinn said, “I appreciate the ongoing efforts of Tennessee schools as they implement summer and tutoring programs to provide students not yet on grade level with the supports they need to thrive.”

Tennessee has about 75,000 third graders. The early data showed 35 percent scored as “approaching” proficiency, down 1 percentage point from last year; and 25 percent scored “below” proficiency, down by 3 percentage points last year in the state’s bottom category. Another 27 percent were deemed to have met the state’s threshold for reading, up 2 percentage points from last year.

Those who weren’t deemed proficient readers may retake the test this week to try to improve their score, or may have to attend learning camps this summer or tutoring sessions this fall to be eligible to advance to fourth grade.

But the state’s numbers do not factor in students who are automatically exempt under the law. Those include third graders with a disability or suspected disability that affects reading; students who have been previously retained; and English language learners with less than two years of instruction in English language arts.

“Exemption decisions will be dealt with at the local level, in compliance with the law,” said Brian Blackley, a state education department spokesman.

District officials spent the weekend analyzing preliminary scores that the department shared with school leaders late Friday afternoon.

Knox County Schools was among the first school systems to report district-level results, with more than a third of its third graders at risk of retention. The district shared scores with families on Friday night and gave them until Sunday to sign up their child to retest this week. More than 1,200 Knox County third graders retook the test on Monday, said spokeswoman Carly Harrington.

About 38 percent of Nashville students face possible retention based on an analysis of performance and exemptions by Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools.

Chattanooga-based Hamilton County Schools reported that more than one-fifth of its third graders either did not score proficient in reading, or did not meet the state’s exemption criteria. “We are in the process of notifying families right now,” spokesman Steve Doremus said Monday.

In Rutherford County Schools, a large suburban district south of Nashville, about 30 percent of third graders may have to satisfy additional learning requirements to be eligible to advance to fourth grade. 

School officials in Memphis did not immediately answer Chalkbeat’s questions about third-grade performance.

“We’re working to support the families of our third-grade students over the next few days as they prepare for retests, appeals, our MSCS Summer Learning Academy, and end-of-year celebrations,” Memphis-Shelby County Schools said in a statement.

In releasing statewide data on Monday, the department reversed course from its stance last week.

Historically, the state has not publicly released data from preliminary student-level scores, which are protected by federal confidentiality laws. Blackley said Friday that would continue to be the case. On Monday, however, he said the public release of some statewide results was an attempt to increase transparency because of the high stakes for third graders.

“We understand there’s a lot of interest,” he said, “so we wanted to give a comprehensive view of third-grade data for English language arts as soon as possible.”

This year’s third graders were the youngest students affected by school disruptions during the pandemic. Their kindergarten year was shortened by three months when Gov. Bill Lee urged public school officials to close their buildings in March 2020 to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

Lee later called the legislature in for a special 2021 session to address ongoing learning disruptions. Lawmakers authorized the creation of summer programs and tutoring during the school year for elementary and middle school grades, while also approving new reading proficiency requirements for third graders to advance, beginning this school year.

The resulting state-funded learning interventions have proven popular, but the retention policy has received widespread criticism.

It’s “worth remembering this broken 3rd grade retention policy was rushed into law during a 4-day special session without any input from educators or families,” state Sen. Jeff Yarbro tweeted over the weekend.

The Nashville Democrat questioned the adequacy of the state’s financial investment in education, its interpretation of scores from the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, and the law’s focus on third graders.

“Maybe, just maybe, our efforts should focus on instruction & interventions in K-2 (if not earlier),” Yarbro wrote.

In Memphis, Sen. Raumesh Akbari said the possibility of holding back thousands of third graders based on a single test score was “manufactured chaos.”

“There are so many student interventions we could be supporting to improve reading comprehension. High-stakes testing, with the threat of failing third grade, is not one of them,” said Akbari, who chairs the Senate Democratic Caucus.

Many school officials also question whether TCAP is the best measure of a child’s ability to read.

“The promotion requirements around one TCAP data point don’t portray simple ‘reading ability,’” Rutherford County Schools Superintendent James Sullivan said in a statement. 

“Instead,” he said, “the TCAP third grade English Language Arts assessment is a measure of a student’s performance on all Tennessee Academic ELA Standards including the ability to interact, decipher, comprehend, and analyze comprehensive text.”

Adrienne Battle, director of schools in Nashville, said her district did not agree with the law’s retention policy, but is working with its families to navigate the law’s impacts.

“It is important for children, parents, and the community to understand that if a student didn’t score proficient on this one test, it does not mean they failed, that they cannot read, or that they are not making learning progress,” Battle said. “Tennessee has some of the highest standards in the nation for student expectations.”

Local pushback caused legislators to revisit the law during their most recent legislative session. Among other things, lawmakers widened criteria for determining which third graders are at risk of being held back, but the changes won’t take effect until next school year.

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

Laura Testino contributed to this report from Memphis. Contact her at ltestino@chalkbeat.org.

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