Nashville schools share data on students’ reading progress. An education equity group wants more.

One Nashville parent group is calling attention to what they’re calling a “hidden” literacy crisis among children in the city.

According to a recent white paper from Nashville PROPEL, nearly 80% of parents thought their kids were on track in reading. But Sonya Thomas, a co-founder of the group, said that doesn’t line up with the data. 

“We have less than 30% of kids reading on grade level, and that’s a crisis,” Thomas said.

And the rate is even lower for students of color — less than than 20% among Black students.

These numbers are based on the English Language Arts section of the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program, or TCAP. It’s worth noting that the test doesn’t just measure reading. It also assesses things like grammar, punctuation and syntax. That all goes into a score that determines whether a child can automatically move from third grade on to fourth.

More: Tennessee third and fourth graders hit all-time highs on English Language Arts TCAP. Still, less than half are proficient.

Regardless, Thomas said parents are out of the loop on students’ reading progress, in part because of “misrepresentation” on report cards.

“They’re like, ‘Oh my God, like the report card is good. My child is getting A’s and B’s. However, now they’re saying my child has to be retained.'”

Nashville PROPEL shared recommendations on distributing more frequent, easy-to-understand data with parents. However, Aliya Washington Smith, director of elementary literacy for Metro Nashville Public Schools, said a lot of that is in the works or already available. 

Sharing data with parents more consistently

The district offers a student portal called Infinite Campus that allows parents to view results on reading benchmark tests that happen throughout the academic year.

“Parents can log on to the student dashboard and they can look at their students scores. And they can see right away how their students are doing,” Washington Smith said.

The platform also offers information on student behavior, social emotional learning, attendance and academic plans.

However, less than half of students in Metro have a parent with an account at just 43.63% in the 2023-2024 school year. And even fewer were logging in on a weekly basis.

When asked whether there may be a lack of awareness about the portal, Washington Smith said “that’s certainly possible.”

This shows an example of what district benchmark results look like in the Infinite Campus platform.

Redesigning report cards

Letter grades offer a limited view of student progress, the parent group said. Their second recommendation was adding a section on report cards that indicates whether a child can read on grade level.

Washington Smith said the district has a committee of teachers and Support Hub workers who are studying the issue of report cards. She said the group will determine “some better ways for us to communicate student progress, as well as ensuring families understand what those varying levels may represent.”

Thomas said she wants to see more detailed report cards.

“Instead of just a letter grade, let’s talk about do they have a phonemic awareness to phonics? Do they have the comprehension? Do they need to work on their vocabulary?” Thomas said. “There needs to be clear, understandable and timely, reports going to these parents so that they can fight for their child.”

Creating a public dashboard

In the white paper, Nashville PROPEL wrote that “parents and community members deserve a school-by-school dashboard with data disaggregated by different sub-groups to help identify school bright spots and system-wide equity gaps.”

A lot of that data is available in MNPS’ State Report Card. However, it does not provide achievement data for students in early grades, when their literacy skills are developing.

“There needs to be a public dashboard with the data, K-2. That’s just not public data,” Thomas said. “What is happening from kindergarten to second grade is very important for the district to be looking at and also for the public to know. We don’t want to wait until third grade data.”

Moving forward

Thomas said she wants to partner with the district to get more parents involved with their kids’ reading progress. So far, the group has trained more than 1,000 parents, according to its report. Washington Smith said MNPS has a department dedicated to developing community partnerships.

“I believe we have to have a cascade of parents and community and educators, together as change agents, to really move the needle for children,” Thomas said.