House subcommittee advances legislation to reduce the number of children at risk for repeating the fourth-grade

Members of the House K-12 Subcommittee voted Tuesday to advance a bill designed to reduce the number of fourth-grade students held back under the state’s new Third-Grade Retention Law.The new law allows third-graders who fail to show reading proficiency on state tests in the spring of their third-grade year to advance to the fourth grade through summer school and/or tutoring in their fourth-grade year.  Those children who receive tutoring still need to show “adequate growth” on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) in the fourth-grade to advance to the fifth-grade.Dubbed the “Alternative Pathways to Fifth-Grade” bill, Representative Gary Hicks’s, R-Rogersville, legislation would provide additional ways for these fourth-grade students to advance by adding additional tests for students to show adequate growth.Fourth-graders who fail to show adequate growth would additionally have another option of advancing through a parent-teacher conference. Those students will also have new support in the fifth grade under the bill.Hicks said the legislation is a response to parents who are concerned their child may be held back.“Over the summer, when school was out, we thought ‘okay, we dodged a bullet there’ because we kept hearing all these students were going to be held back in third-grade. And then lo and behold, we find out later, well they got through third-grade because there was other off-ramps, to find out in fourth-grade they either show adequate growth or they’re stuck,” said Hicks.The bill found support among the committee from representatives who felt it could be a first step in addressing other problems with retention, such as students who may do well in class but struggle on tests.“I appreciate you bringing this bill, I think it needs to be done, and I hope there’s a way that we can figure out to move these fourth-graders on. You hear so many times, a student’s grades are straight A’s, but when it comes to the testing part of it, you know, they struggle a little bit sometimes and there’s pressure on the test, on test days, and that type of stuff and I hope we’re not holding students back because of one bad test or a couple bad tests,” said Representative Todd Warner, R-Chapel Hill.The bill moves on to the Education Administration committee in the House and the Senate Education Committee advanced a companion bill this week.House members are also considering a related proposal in the chamber’s version of the Education Freedom Scholarship act that would remove the fourth-grade retention section of the new law altogether and instead require fourth-graders who fail to test proficient in reading to attend summer school and tutoring in the fifth-grade.