Potential compromise reached to study Tennessee’s testing and accountability system, instead of weakening it

Student taking a multiple choice test (Photo by Andy Barbour/Pexels)

This legislative session, lawmakers have filed multiple bills designed to reduce the number of tests students take and weaken the evaluation system for their teachers.

Wednesday afternoon State Senator Adam Lowe, R-Calhoun, announced a compromise has been reached to at least study both possibilities before making any changes.

Senator Adam Lowe (Photo by the Tennessee General Assembly)

Lowe’s legislation would create a ten-member advisory committee appointed by state leaders to study the state’s testing and accountability systems along with the academic requirements for career and technical education (CTE) students, whether schools should have a minimum number of required instructional hours, and the licensure requirements for teachers. That committee would begin meeting later this year and issue a report by the end of December.

The bill unanimously passed the Senate Education Committee Wednesday and Lowe stated that the House intends to align with his legislation. The bill faces a vote in the House Education Committee next week.

“This bill comes from a long conversation that we have been having around teacher evaluation and state mandated assessments,” said Lowe. “We’ve been looking at various changes with this and it was determined, after working with all parties both in the House and the Senate, that it would be best to take this to a structured committee to get solid recommendations back to us.”

The compromise could be viewed as a setback for the Tennessee Education Association. It’s been pushing for changes to state assessments and evaluations in the name of “freedom to teach,” putting out a press release earlier this month supporting legislation that would have done so.

“Freedom to teach is critical to student success and educator morale,” said TEA President Tanya T. Coats in the press release. “For too long our public education system has been over-reliant on high-stakes standardized testing, and this legislation takes an important step toward letting teachers teach students, not the tests.”

The organization has not issued a public response to the compromise legislation.