Compromise Third-Grade Retention bill advances on unanimous House vote

Members of the Tennessee House Education Administration Committee unanimously advanced a compromise bill Wednesday designed to reduce the number of children held back from Tennessee’s Third-Grade Retention Law.The support is notable as this year legislators have proposed more than a dozen bills to repeal or adjust the controversial 2021 law that holds back third grade students who’s test scores show a need for additional reading assistance.Education leaders in both the Senate and House created a compromise bill to address some of the concerns legislators have raised about the law.“This is the retention bill that we’ve been discussing for a long time on trying to come up with some reasonable accommodations for our LEAs (local education agency) to give a little bit more flexibility with the children that are very close to being on grade level and showing another pathway that we might be able to get the results that we want,” said Culleoka Representative Scott Cepicky. “We have taken a long time, listening, I mean there were numerous bills, and this bill has come about from looking at all the retention bills that were filed by the members and pulling out what looks like the best practices to try to salve a student, that—we don’t want anybody to fall through the cracks.”The legislation creates an appeal process for parents and assigns a tutor that is paid for by the state for students retained in third grade.It also expands the testing score requirement for children to advance to the fourth grade so that a second state-approved test can be considered for third graders who score just under the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) requirement.“We have multiple data points now, multiple options like taking a retest on the ELA (English Language Arts) portion and passing it and showing that you’re on grade level. We’ve got the appeal process. We think we put this bill in the position that we probably needed it in at the beginning, but sometimes you pass legislation you kind of got to step and look at it a second time and then you say ‘oh, we gotta fix this,’” said Representative Cepicky.The bill faces a vote in the Government Operations Committee next. It passed the Senate Education Committee last week.