Testing didn’t receive a lot of headlines during the debate earlier this year over Governor Bill Lee’s plan to let families use taxpayer dollars to send their children to private school, but it played an important role in why the legislation failed. Members of the State House and Senate advanced different versions of the Governor’s Education Freedom Scholarship, sometimes called vouchers, and couldn’t come to a compromise on those differences. One of the biggest involved a provision in the House version of the legislation that would reduce the number of tests students in public school are required to take.

The Governor’s new voucher plan unveiled Wednesday includes no reduction in testing and additionally requires participants in grades 3 through 11 to either take a nationally standardized achievement test or The Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program.

Between 2007 and 2011, reforms to better align Tennessee with national assessments substantially narrowed the “honesty gap” that occurs when students score higher on less demanding state assessments than they do on national assessments. These reforms helped Tennessee dramatically improve its ranking on national assessments and efforts to undermine them are misguided. 

The State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) has released a new memo highlighting how policymakers have helped advance early literacy in the state with the help of student performance data, among other key metrics.

State education officials say the schools overseen by the Tennessee Public Charter School Commission are faring well when compared to the school districts that rejected them.

While parents strongly support the use of statewide summative assessments to measure student progress, many believe that few K-12 leaders are clearly sharing how results are used to formulate academic intervention strategies.

Clarksville-Montgomery County School Board discussed reading proficiency requirements, the decision not to arm teachers, and the impact of COVID-19 relief funding during last week’s meeting.

Williamson County parents will soon learn whether their kids will have to attend summer school to advance under state reading proficiency requirements.