SCORE TCAP analysis indicates need to address performance gaps

While recent results from the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) exam indicate that students across the state achieved “record-high” proficiency rates in English Language Arts (ELA) and made some notable progress in math, analysts from the State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) say more work is needed to address performance gaps affecting non-white and economically disadvantaged students.

According to SCORE’s Director of Data Alexis Parker, who led a webinar last week discussing 2024 TCAP results, scores in recent years show that achievement gaps between student groups “widened significantly” from 2021 to 2023 and have still yet to meaningfully close in 2024. She noted that overall student performance in public charter schools, which serve higher percentages of economically disadvantaged students and students of color, has also lagged behind students in non-charter schools.

Parker said based on these gaps, the state should renew its focus on addressing opportunity gaps for students who are traditionally underserved.

“You can see that Black and Hispanic students’ proficiency is roughly half the rate of white student proficiency. That is unacceptable,” she said.  “[Having] less than 30 percent proficiency among our students of color in the state is a real clear signal that this needs to be an area of focus moving forward. … What we're seeing is that, despite pretty impressive growth across groups, gaps are not equitably closing.”

Parker noted that economically disadvantaged students, who make up roughly one-third of Tennessee students, scored proficient at half the rate of their non-economically-disadvantaged peers in ELA, despite the fact that students continued making positive progress in ELA with a 1-point gain to 37.6 percent in 2024 — a proficiency rate that significantly exceeds pre-pandemic performance of 33.7 percent in 2019.According to a recent SCORE analysis of TCAP scores, achievement gaps between Black and white students in ELA continue to be greater than 20 percentage points.

The analysis said only white students have caught up to pre-pandemic performance, signaling a need to focus more on providing students with academic support to close performance gaps. It noted that performance gaps have generally persisted in math as well.In terms of high school English performance, the SCORE analysis noted that English I proficiency for grades 9-12 remained steady at 35.4 percent. English II proficiency for grades 9-12 increased to 50.6 percent proficiency in 2024 from 49.4 percent in 2023. However, in this area, there are also equity gaps across grade levels. The Black-White gap is 22 points, while the Hispanic-White gap is 17 points. The economically disadvantaged gap is 23 points for grades 9-12 in English I, according to the analysis.

“Across ELA and math, we can see that Tennessee students are continuing to grow year over year. In ELA, our state is now surpassing pre-pandemic performance … You can see we're just about caught up in math, but not quite to where we were in 2019 prior to the pandemic,” Parker said, noting that the state has nonetheless had an “impressive” recovery and is “recovering faster than many other states across the country.”