Tennessee Department of Education releases School Letter Grades dashboard

The Tennessee Department of Education rolled out its much-anticipated School Letter Grades platform Thursday.  The system is designed to provide the public with transparency into how well public schools are meeting state expectations by awarding each school with an A through F grade.Parents can use the dashboard to look up the letter grade for each public school in the state.“School letter grades will provide Tennessee families with a clear rating system that gives them a snapshot of how their child’s school is performing,” said Tennessee Department of Education Commission Lizzette Reynolds. “No matter what your school’s letter grade is, everyone can play a role in supporting the success of our students and the success of our schools by engaging with your local school communities and joining the conversation.”Multiple factors go into the grade for each school and those factors vary depending on if the school is an elementary, middle, or high school.For elementary and middle schools, achievement on state tests will make up 50 percent of the grade while student growth on the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System (TVAAS) will make up 40 percent.  The remaining 10 percent will measure the TVAAS growth of students in each school who scored low (Subgroup-Lowest 25 percent) on the prior year’s state testing.The grade for high schools will see the same 50 percent weight for achievement, with the remaining score breakdown of 30 percent for student growth, 10 percent for TVAAS growth of low performing students, and an additional 10 percent for how well schools prepared students for college and career readiness.The state's four largest school districts received noticeably different score breakdowns. Roughly half of Knox County Schools and Hamilton County Schools received either an A or a B score while roughly 40 percent of Memphis-Shelby County Schools and Metro Nashville Public Schools received either a D or F grades.Memphis-Shelby County Schools: 198 schools graded.

• 9 received an A (5 percent).
• 30 received a B (15 percent).
• 72 received a C (36 percent).
• 44 received a D (22 percent).
• 43 received an F (22 percent).

Metro Nashville Public Schools had 143 schools graded.

• 10 received an A (7 percent).
• 27 received a B (19 percent).
• 48 received a C (34 percent).
• 44 received a D (30 percent).
• 14 received an F (10 percent).

Knox County Schools had 83 schools graded.

• 19 received an A (23 percent).
• 24 received a B (29 percent).
• 15 received a C (18 percent).
• 21 received a D (25 percent).
• 4 received an F (5 percent).

Hamilton County Schools had 78 schools graded.

• 14 received an A (18 percent)
• 23 received a B (29 percent)
• 21 received a C (27 percent)
• 17 received a D (22 percent)
• 3 received an F (4 percent)

The department created the rating calculation after receiving input from ten public hearings and online comments, along with recommendations from a working group that provided recommendations to fine tune the calculation. The final rating system followed a large number of those recommendations including utilizing all tested subjects to measure achievement, but it did deviate on a few notable areas.The working group largely favored using the state’s existing Ready Graduate Indicator to measure career and college readiness for high schools.  Reynolds said her department chose to instead utilize more specific data, including ACT scores and students who earned postsecondary credits and industry credentials, to better measure actual student outcomes.The department also chose not to include any criteria in the calculation to address specific student circumstances from outside of the classroom that may impact learning.Memphis-Shelby County Schools Interim Superintendent Toni Williams criticized that choice, saying the state needs a more comprehensive system that recognizes challenges students face from problems like community violence."That's one critical aspect that overlooks the progress that we have.  Many of our students face significant challenges outside of the classroom," said Williams. "The lack of kindergarten readiness to the impact of community violence. That's one discussion that we've had as a community overarching around our community violence and some of our students really face that. So these real world issues significantly impact learning. The current system doesn't account for that."The Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation creating the School Letter Grades in 2016 but the state has repeatedly delayed its roll-out for a number of reasons including the COVID-19 pandemic.